THE  MARRIAGE  OF 
CAPTAIN  KEHLE 


HYNE 


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UBRART 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORfUA 

RIVERSIDE 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF 
CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

C;  J.  CUTCLIFFE.HYNE 

Autliorof  '" 

ADVENTURES  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE, 

McTODD,  Etc.,  Etc. 


ILLUSTRATIONS  BY 

J.  W.  ROBSON 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


f^^^2/7 


Copyright  1912  //  ^^^M2. 

The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 


This  edition  enjoys  copyright  in  all  countries  sienatory  to  the 

Berne  Treaty 

Dramatic  rights  reserved 


PRESS    Op 
/  BRAUNWORTH    &    CO. 

BOOKBINDERS    AND     PRINTERS 
BROOKLYN.    N.    Y. 


TO 
E 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I  No  Coal         .        •.        •.        w 

II  The  Voyage  of  the  Life-Boat 

III  The  Charity  of  the  Seas 

IV  The  Watch  on  the  "Rhein" 
V  The  Dutchman  Pays    . 

VI  Leads  Up  to  Miss  Dubbs 

VII  Cremation  of  a  Tobacco-Pipe 

VIII  Mr.  McTodd  Graciously  Decides 

IX  The  Stewardess  Signs  . 

X  Re-enter  the  Norman  Towers 

XI  Disengagement 

XII  A  Channel  to  the  Lagoon 

XIII  Saint  M.  Bergash,  B.  A. 

XIV  A  FooT-NoTE  to  History 
XV  The  Beginning  of  War 

XVI  The  Call  of  the  Queen 

XVII  Miss  Chesterman's  Warning 

XVIII  A  Mystery  Is  Soln-ed 

XIX  Violet  Forces  the  Pace 

XX  In  the  Atlas  Foot-Hills 

XXI  A  Little  Berber  Sport 

XXII  The  Saint  Proposes 

XXIII  The  Captain  Disposes 

XXIV  A  Charge  of  Cavalry 
XXV  Salvaged 

XXVI  The  Surviving  Farnish 


PACB 
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17 

36 

40 

54 

68 

90 

114 

123 

139 

160 

166 

181 

198 

212 

227 

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256 

266 

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289 

303 

317 

331 

344 

361 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN 

KETTLE 


CHAPTER  I 

NO   COAL 

iCXrOU  flat-footed  Senegambian,"  said  Mr.  Ket- 
■■■  tie,  the  Mate,  "  if  you  drop  any  more  of  that 
green  paint  on  my  decks,  I'll  make  you  go  down  on 
your  knock-knees  and  lick  them  clean.  I  don't  be- 
lieve you've  ever  seen  a  winch  before,  much  less 
painted  one.  And  yet  you  have  the  nerve  to  sign  on 
here  as  A.B." 

"  I  always  accustomed,  sar,  to  put  on  paint  wid 
a  brush.  I  don't  consider  a  wad  of  waste  a  proper 
gentleman's  tool." 

"  Answer  me  back,  would  you,  you  plum-colored 
son  of  a  palm-nut?  I'd  like  to  point  out  just  here  — 
that  I  don't  —  allow  —  deck-hands  w  hether  they  be 
white,  yellow,  snuff  and  butter-colored  —  or  just  plain 
black  —  to  give  me  any  back  talk  —  so  long  as  I  am 
Mr.  Mate  of  this  packet.  And  don't  you — forget 
it." 

The  sentence  was  punctuated  with  hard  kicks  be- 

I 


2         MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

stowed  by  a  neatly  pipe-clayed  shoe  on  any  part  of  the 
huge  vicious-looking  negro's  anatomy  that  the  little 
officer  could  reach.  The  man  had  drawn  the  knife 
from  the  sheath  at  the  back  of  his  belt,  and  was  openly 
prepared  for  murder.  But  the  mate  gave  him  no 
chance  to  use  it.  He  chased  him  about  the  decks  with 
such  vigor  and  venom  that  the  fellow  could  not  turn 
round  to  strike,  and  when  at  last  the  man  tripped  over 
a  steam-pipe  and  the  knife  went  flying,  Mr.  Kettle 
instead  of  pitching  it  overboard,  kicked  it  contemptu- 
ously back  to  its  owner. 

"  There's  your  knife.  Put  it  back  in  its  sheath,  or 
I'll  smash  you  some  more.  And  now  get  back  to  your 
work." 

"  Yes,  sar." 

"  Understand  how  to  lay  on  paint  with  a  wad  of 
waste  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sar." 

"  Get  ahead  then." 

The  negro  painted  with  diligence  and  skill,  leaving 
the  surface  he  touched  a  fine  rasping  green,  with  no 
superfluous  paint  that  would  subsequently  run  and 
grow  ropy,  and  cutting  clean  straight  lines  at  his  edges. 
It  is  a  high  art  to  paint  accurately  with  a  wad  of  cot- 
ton-waste, and  many  men,  including  the  house-painter, 
have  it  not.  But  steamer  tradition  says  that  the 
African  negro  when  he  paints  shall  not  use  a  brush, 
and  the  sea  sumptuary  laws  are  severe.  So  the  negro 
is  forced  to  learn  the  skill  of  his  hands  with  the  home- 
lier instrument. 


NO  COAL  3 

"Mr.  Kettle?" 

"  Sir." 

The  mate  looked  aft  to  the  upper  bridge,  and  be- 
held there  the  blowsy  head  and  still  blowsier  tobacco- 
pipe  of  Captain  Saturday  Farnish. 

*' Will  you  come  to  the  chart  house  a  minute?" 

"  Aye,  aye,  sir." 

The  inside  of  the  s.s.  Norman  Tozuers'  chart  house 
smelt  of  clothes  and  varnish.  Its  walls  were  dec- 
orated with  a  shelf  of  professional  works;  an  oil- 
painting  of  the  Norman  Tozvers  in  impossible  colors 
on  an  impossible  sea,  from  the  brush  of  an  Eastern 
artist;  and  the  cabinet  portrait  of  a  large  pleasant- 
faced  lady  in  bursting  satins,  this  last  being  Mrs. 
Saturday  Farnish. 

Captain  Farnish  lowered  himself  into  a  large  red 
velvet  arm-chair,  which  lurched  dangerously  as  it  met 
his  weight. 

"  That  starboard  caster  off  again,"  he  grumbled. 
"  Chips  must  have  mended  it  five  times  this  trip 
alone." 

"  The  carpenter's  inefficient,  sir,"  said  his  chief 
officer  stiffly.  "  He  needs  keeping  up  to  his  job.  If 
you'll  let  me  take  him  in  hand,  I'll  undertake  he  does 
the  thing  thoroughly  this  time.  I'll  make  him  a  good 
carpenter,  sir,  if  you'll  let  me  have  the  handling  of 
him.  I  could  make  the  Towers  look  a  different  boat, 
sir,  by  the  time  we  reach  Liverpool,  if  you'd  let  me 
have  full  use  of  the  carpenter." 

"  And  never  have  him  come  near  the  old  packet 


4         MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

again?  No,  you  don't,  Mr.  Kettle,  me  man.  I've 
had  Chips  saiHng  with  me  six  years  now,  and  I  like 
him.  He's  idle,  but  he  understands  the  boat,  and  he's 
got  a  neat  trick  with  that  penny  whistle." 

"  He  can  blow  tunes  out  of  that  whistle,"  the  chief 
officer  admitted  grudgingly,  "  and  that's  a  fact.  But 
as  a  carpenter  he's  a  holy  fraud.  Look  here,  sir,  if 
you  want  a  smart  ship — " 

"  I  don't.  I  want  a  comfortable  one.  What's  the 
clock?  Five-and-twenty  to  twelve.  Dash  my  whisk- 
ers! But  that's  five  minutes  after  the  time  for  my 
*  morning '." 

He  got  up,  took  a  whisky  bottle  and  tumbler  from 
inside  the  folding  wash-stand,  and  poured  himself  out 
an  accurate  three  fingers,  holding  the  glass  to  the  light 
so  as  to  be  sure  of  the  measure.  He  added  water  to 
within  a  finger's  breadth  of  the  top,  drank  a  third  of 
the  mixture,  and  resumed  his  seat  with  a  sigh,  glass  in 
hand. 

"  That  just  gets  to  the  spot  where  my  old  fever  left 
a  hole.  I  hope  you  will  always  enjoy  good  health, 
Mr.  Kettle,  me  man,  and  not  want  a  *  morning '  till 
you're  master  of  your  own  ship  and  have  a  mate  to  do 
the  work  for  you.  If  you  stick  to  Horner's  Perfect 
Cure,  that  Mrs.  Farnish  brought  you  up  on,  you'll 
have  little  to  complain  of  in  the  way  of  internal  trou- 
ble." 

"  Thank  you,  sir,  I'm  pretty  regular.  I  put  in  my 
two  doses  of  Horner's  every  week,  and  reap  the  ben- 
efit.    As  for  a  'morning',  a  chief  officer's  pay  on  a 


NO  COAL  5 

tramp  simply  won't  run  to  it,  if  he  takes  a  bottle  of 
beer  with  his  dinner." 

"  Especially  if  he  wants  to  save  up  for  his  evenings 
ashore  when  he  feels  it's  up  to  him  to  give  the  girls 
a  treat."  Captain  Famish  winked  a  damp  eye. 
"  Pretty  little  piece  that  you  were  trotting  round  Ca- 
thedral Square  in  Vera  Cruz,  Owen,  me  man." 

The  mate  laughed.  "  She  was  giving  me  Spanish 
lessons,  sir.     But  I  didn't  know  we  met  you." 

"  I  was  sitting  under  the  Hotel  Diligencia  piazza 
having  a  social  glass  with  the  boss  stevedore.  There 
was  a  little  matter  of  a  bit  of  cumshaw  which  it  seems 
you  were  too  proud  to  take  — " 

"  I  accept  charity  from  no  man." 

"  Well,  I'm  not  so  stuck-up,  and  when  Miss  Right 
comes  along,  and  you  marry  and  have  a  houseful  of 
youngsters,  you'll  stuff  notes  into  your  pocket-book 
when  they're  offered,  me  man.  Not  that  I  blame  you 
for  sparking  the  sefiorita.  I've  danced  'em  round 
myself  when  I  was  your  age,  and  was  a  fine  buck  mate 
with  a  brand-new  master's  ticket  aching  to  be  used.  I 
wore  long  side-whiskers  then,  and  the  girls  thought 
'em  awfully  fetching." 

Captain  Farnish  chuckled  till  he  had  to  wipe  away 
the  reminiscent  tear  with  the  broad  back  of  his  hand. 
"  Fetching,  by  gad !  I  should  think  I  was.  But 
you've  heard  the  old  woman  tuning  up  on  that  string 
when  she's  been  mad  with  me." 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  the  chief  officer  respectfully,  "  and 
I  took  a  note  of  it  at  the  time  for  future  reference." 


6         MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

Each  caught  the  other's  eye,  and  laughed.  Owen 
Kettle  was  the  son  of  Captain  Farnish's  old  skipper, 
and  after  the  old  man  went  down  with  his  ship  in  the 
China  Seas,  the  Famishes  had  brought  up  the  boy  with 
their  own  children.  Mrs.  Farnish  ruled  that  house- 
hold with  a  rod  of  Malacca,  and  during  Captain  Sat- 
urday Farnish's  brief  spells  ashore,  when  his  tongue 
had  been  lubricated  into  indiscretions,  he  often  received 
stripes  even  in  the  bosom  of  his  family,  as  all  Mersey- 
side  Terrace,  Birkenhead,  knew  full  well,  to  his  grim 
amusement. 

Even  now  the  narrow  house  in  the  narrow  street 
across  the  river  at  Liverpool  was  the  only  place  that 
Kettle  considered  as  home  throughout  all  the  marches 
of  the  universe,  and  though  the  chance  of  service  had 
thrown  him  on  the  Norman  Towers  as  chief  officer 
to  his  own  foster-father,  and  though  they  addressed 
one  another  by  those  formal  titles  which  the  hard  and 
fast  etiquette  of  the  sea  sets  out  in  its  rubrics,  there 
remained  under  the  surface  much  of  the  old  careless, 
if  undefined  affection. 

"  Well,"  said  Captain  Farnish,  "  as  the  old  woman 
isn't  here  to  object  —  God  bless  her!  —  and  we  seem 
to  have  made  a  goodish  run,  I  think  I'd  repeat  the  pre- 
scription. You  might  make  it  up,  me  man.  It'll  be 
practice  for  you  when  you  have  a  ship  of  your  own, 
and  have  to  know  how  to  pour  out  whisky  without 
overloading  the  dose.  And  put  the  bottle  back  on  its 
shelf,  and  shut  the  wash-stand,  so's  my  steward  isn't 
tempted.     Well,  here's — " 


NO  COAL  7 

But  Captain  Farnish's  genial  toast  remained  un- 
voiced, and  he  sat  back  heavily  in  the  big  broken- 
springed  velvet  chair,  with  the  beverage  slopping  over 
the  edge  of  his  tumbler. 

Kettle  followed  his  gaze.  Framed  in  the  brass  ring 
of  a  port  was  the  bilious  face  of  Mr.  Andrew  Little, 
the  chief  engineer,  and  in  front  of  it  the  black  and 
damnatory  forefinger  of  Mr.  Little  pointing  to  the 
tumbler. 

*'  At  it  again,"  muttered  the  mate.  And  then  as 
the  face  and  the  finger  whisked  away,  "  Shall  I  go  and 
attend  to  him?  "  he  asked. 

*'  No,  no,  me  man,  .thank  you  all  the  same.  He'll 
pull  round  if  we  give  him  time." 

"  He'll  be  ramping  round  the  decks  preaching  hell- 
for-sinners  for  any  grinning  idiot  who  comes  to  hear, 
inside  ten  minutes.  His  latest  craze  is  that  all  who  do 
not  starve  themselves  are  doomed  to  perdition.  Fancy 
an  officer,  even  though  he  be  an  engineer,  telling  that 
to  a  gang  of  old  sailors  who  are  ramping  to  get  their 
full  Board  of  Trade  whack.  I  don't  think  it's  good 
for  the  chief's  inside  to  be  allowed  the  run  of  his 
tongue  when  these  luny  fits  come  on  him,  and  I'm  cer- 
tain it's  bad  for  the  discipline  of  the  ship." 

"  Very  difficult  thing  to  coerce  a  chief  engineer,  as 
you'll  learn,  Mr.  Kettle,  me  man,  when  you  get  a  ship 
of  your  own.  You  can't  send  him  to  his  room  with- 
out entering  the  circumstance  in  the  log,  and  that 
means  wasting  time  over  explanations  at  the  office 
ashore  when  you  might  be  sitting  with  your  wife  at 


8        MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

a  music-hall.  My  motto's  always  try  for  the  line  of 
least  resistance." 

"  Mr.  Little's  dangerous." 

"  Very  likely,  Mr.  Kettle,  me  man,  very  likely. 
But  I  tackle  trouble  when  it  comes.  I  don't  go  and 
hunt  for  it  like  you  do,  and  it's  astonishing  how  much 
one  slips  out  of  if  one  follows  that  principle.  There's 
that  nigger,  for  instance,  that  you  were  stubbing  your 
toe  against  half  an  hour  ago." 

"  He's  a  bad  nigger  that,  bone  idle,  and  saucy  as  a 
German  baron.  But  I'll  make  him  into  a  good  dog 
before  I'm  through  with  him." 

"  Did  he  ever  try  to  knife  you  before?  " 

"  Only  twice  that  I  could  be  sure  of." 

"  Then  why  in  thunder  didn't  you  fling  his  weapon 
over  into  the  ditch  when  you  had  it  there  lying  on  the 
deck  before  you?  " 

"  Because  I  intended  to  show  the  swine  I  wasn't 
afraid  of  him." 

"  I  believe  you  really  like  trouble." 

The  little  mate  sighed  deeply,  "  I  am  afraid  I  do, 


sir." 


"  I  wonder  where  you  got  your  taste  from.  It 
couldn't  be  from  your  upbringing.  I'm  sure  you 
never  got  a  hankering  for  trouble  from  either  me  or 
the  old  woman,  though  when  one  comes  to  think  of  it, 
your  pore  father — " 

"Yes,  sir?" 

"  Well,  he  was  Welsh,  Owen,  me  man,  and  we'll 
leave  it  at  that.     But  I  will  say  that  at  any  rate  there's 


NO  COAL  9 

nothing  of  the  thief  about  you,  and  I  never  caught  you 
in  a  lie  in  all  your  life —  Well,  Mr.  Mate,  don't  let 
me  keep  you  from  your  duty." 

With  which  formal  dismissal  Captain  Saturday 
Farnish  drank  the  rest  of  his  whisky  and  water,  closed 
his  eyes,  opened  his  mouth,  and  was  promptly  asleep. 

The  smart,  keen,  chief  officer  stepped  out  into  the 
sunshine,  and  from  place  to  place  on  the  seedy  under- 
manned steamer  went  about  his  many  duties,  walking 
crisply,  talking  crisply,  getting  a  maximum  of  work 
done  with  the  limited  means  at  his  disposal.  They 
were  voyaging  from  Vera  Cruz  to  Liverpool;  had 
passed  out  of  the  Gulf  Stream  through  the  Bahamas, 
south  of  the  island  of  Abaco,  by  that  channel  known 
to  the  Western  Ocean  sailor  folk  as  the  Hole  in  the 
Wall ;  and  were  well  out  in  the  Sargasso  Sea. 

So  far  as  the  eye  could  see  the  only  things  that 
floated  on  the  turquoise  blue  swells  were  bunches  of 
orange-yellow  weed.  The  steamer's  rusty  black  bows 
sawed  regularly  up  and  down,  always  pushing  a  crum- 
bling cascade  of  white  water  ahead  of  her.  In  sea 
phrase  she  carried  a  good  bone  in  her  teeth,  and  in  and 
out  of  this  played  iridescent  flying-fish  of  the  bigness 
and  shape  of  dragon-flies.  Other  flying-fish  like  silver 
rats  skimmed  along  the  sleek  blue  hollows  of  the 
swells,  and  plunged  with  a  splash  into  the  next  up- 
rearing  hillside.  And  astern  and  overhead  seven  gulls 
held  steady  station,  and  could  be  depended  on  to  keep 
convoy  till  the  gulls  on  the  Azores  beat  met  them  in 
the  wastes  of  mid-ocean,  and  took  over  relief. 


10       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

On  to  the  top  of  the  fiddley  a  grimy  fireman  pres- 
ently clambered,  one  corner  of  his  sweat  rag  between 
his  teeth,  and  slued  round  a  ventilator  to  catch  more 
of  the  breeze. 

A  deck-hand,  who  was  setting  up  funnel  stays, 
turned  his  head.  "  That's  the  fourth  time  you  ash 
cats  have  been  up  here  messing  with  the  ventilators 
this  watch.  And  the  wind's  not  shifted  half  a  point. 
Is  it  a  game?  " 

"  It's  a  mighty  poor  game.  We're  firing  on  the 
sweepings  of  the  bunkers,  and  it's  horses'  work  to  keep 
steam  in  her." 

"  Well,  it's  your  job,  not  mine  —  praise  the  Lord ! 
—  but  it's  struck  me  before  that  your  old  coffee-mill's 
not  running  her  usual  revolutions.  Just  give  the  chief 
my  kind  dooty,  and  say  I'll  be  glad  if  he'll  broach  a 
new  bunker  and  give  you  some  good  hard  coal  to  fire 
on.  You're  blowing  all  this  sludge  clean  out  of  the 
stack,  and  it  drops  on  our  decks,  and  it's  up  to  us  to 
sweep  it  into  the  ditch.  You  may  tell  him  to  — 
Whisht !     There's  the  mate." 

The  fireman  stumped  off  down  steel  ladders  out  of 
sight,  the  deck-hand  worked  with  intense  application 
at  setting  up  his  funnel  stay,  and  Mr.  Kettle,  the  Mate, 
went  below  to  bring  up  his  sextant  for  the  midday 
sight.  The  heat  of  the  engines  certainly  was  slack- 
ing. He  wondered  why.  The  reason  would  have  to 
be  entered  up  under  "  distance  run  according  to  en- 
gine-room reckoning  "  when  the  chief  handed  in  his 
day's  report,  and  even  easy-going  Captain  Saturday 


NO  COAL  II 

Farnish  could  not  avoid  officially  commenting  upon  it. 
But  it  was  no  affair  of  the  deck  officer's  —  and  Kettle 
dropped  it  from  his  mind.  He  was  always  a  very 
keen  stickler  for  the  rigid  steamer  etiquette  which 
states  that  the  engine-room  shall  not  meddle  with  the 
deck,  and  the  deck  shall  have  no  truck  with  the  engine 
staff  except  for  purely  deck  purposes. 

So  the  Norman  Towers'  chief  officer  took  his  sex- 
tant from  its  box  in  the  rack  over  his  berth,  gave  it  a 
rub  over  with  its  own  piece  of  wash-leather  —  he  was 
a  very  natty  man  about  his  trade  utensils  —  went  out 
on  deck,  and  gave  a  warning  knock  at  the  chart-house 
door. 

"  Five  minutes  to  noon,  sir." 

The  elderly  second  mate,  who  couldn't  have  worked 
out  a  sight  if  his  life  had  depended  on  it,  was  looking 
wise  over  his  instrument  and  fiddling  with  the  smoked 
glasses;  the  smart,  young,  school-bred  third  was  nerv- 
ously fidgeting  away  to  make  sure  the  sun  did  not  play 
tricks  on  him  by  making  a  sudden  lunge  downward 
before  he  brought  it  to  the  horizon;  and  then  out 
shambled  Captain  Farnish,  blowsy  and  slippered,  and 
put  up  his  sextant  also,  like  the  practised  old  man  of 
the  sea  he  was. 

All  four  of  them  solemnly  stared,  working  the 
vernier  screws  each  according  to  his  temperament,  and 
then  Farnish  went  in  to  his  chronometer,  and  gave  out 
the  Greenwich  time.  The  mates  went  below  to  work 
out  the  reckoning  (which  the  second,  by  the  way,  la- 
boriously copied  from  Kettle),  and  in  due  time  these 


12       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

were  handed  into  the  chart  house,  and  from  them  Cap- 
tain Farnish  marked  up  on  the  chart  the  Norman 
Towers*  position  on  the  face  of  the  waters.  He  never 
worked  out  the  figures  for  himself.  As  he  said,  he 
knew  a  good  mate  when  he  saw  one,  and  it  helped  a 
lad  on  to  give  him  a  bit  of  responsibility.  And  after 
this  it  was  his  custom  to  add  another  ten  minutes' 
sleep  to  the  short  doze  he  had  already  enjoyed,  so  as 
to  have  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  rest  to  the  good  before 
dinner. 

But  this  day  a  portent  was  showing  itself  that  even 
his  easy-going  temperament  could  not  afford  to  over- 
look. The  engines  had  long  since  dropped  that  steady 
uniform  rub-a-rumble  rub-a-rumble  which  a  steamer's 
engines  should  keep  up  from  port  to  port  (or  at  any 
rate,  from  soundings  to  soundings),  and  were  giving 
forth  that  labored  kick-and-a-cough  which  one  only 
hears  in  narrow  waters  and  crowded  traffic.  And 
even  this  was  slowing  down. 

Further,  there  was  obvious  trouble  among  the  en- 
gine-room staff.  The  slender  watches  of  firemen  and 
trimmers  were  bunched  on  the  fiddley-top ;  the  second 
and  fourth  engineers,  both  very  young  men,  both 
pasty-faced,  were  standing  outside  the  engine-room 
door  in  the  port  alleyway,  openly  perturbed,  obviously 
ignorant  of  what  to  do  next. 

The  second  mate  discovered  it  was  his  watch  below 
and  dived  there  like  a  rabbit ;  number  three  was  watch- 
officer  on  the  bridge ;  but  Kettle  instinctively  closed  up 
on  his  captain.     There  was  something  in  his  nature 


NO  COAL  13 

which  always  forced  him  to  get  close  to  the  storm- 
center  when  trouble  was  brewing. 

"  I  don't  like  it,  Mr.  Kettle,  me  man,"  Captain 
Farnish  kept  on  saying,  "  I  don't  like  it  at  all.  That 
infernal  Mr.  Little  has  been  at  some  of  his  mad  tricks 
again,  and  scared  all  those  ash  cats  out  of  their  greasy 
lives.  If  I  send  for  the  fellow,  and  he's  one  of  those 
luny  fits  on  him,  he'll  preach  offensively  to  me  on  the 
need  of  fasting,  and  it'll  mean  a  row;  and  if  I  don't 
send  for  him  he'll  as  like  as  not  keep  us  rolling  on  here 
till  I  do  send  for  him,  and  that'll  take  some  explaining 
at  Liverpool ;  and  between  you  and  me,  Mr.  Kettle, 
me  man,  I'm  in  a  devil  of  a  fix." 

The  chief  officer  said,  "  Yes,  sir,"  which  was  all  he 
could  say.  For  any  underling  to  give  advice  to  a 
ship's  captain  unless  asked  for,  would  probably  bring 
about  a  cyclone  there  and  then  while  the  words  were 
being  uttered. 

"  Let  me  see.     Did  I  have  my  *  morning  '  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

**  H'm,  perhaps  better  not  have  a  second  before 
idinner.  I  wish  that  infernal  chief  engineer  would  get 
an  expert  to  wrestle  with  his  soul  ashore,  instead  of 
bringing  such  useless  dunnage  as  an  out-o'-repair  soul 
to  sea, —  the  blooming  crazy  nuisance.  I  ought  to 
have  sent  him  to  hospital  at  Vera  Cruz,  but  it  would 
have  meant  a  lot  of  letter-writing,  and  cabling,  and 
signing  a  stack  of  consular  papers.  I  hate  signing 
papers;  you  never  know  what  they  let  you  in  for. 
Besides  you  know  what  the  firm  is :  if  I'd  got  rid  of 


14      MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

Little,  as  likely  as  not  they'd  have  saddled  me  with 
one  of  those  newfangled  chiefs,  who'd  want  to  go 
shares  in  my  legitimate  profits.  You  take  it  from  me, 
Mr.  Kettle,  me  man,  they're  swine, —  these  new  tech- 
nical-school engineers." 
"  Yes,  sir." 

"  I  don't  like  to  send  for  him,  but  I  suppose  I'd  bet- 
ter hear  what  he  has  to  say.  Could  you  —  er  —  just 
gtt  him  into  the  chart  house  here,  Mr.  Kettle  ?  " 

"Yes,  sir,  I  understand.  Quite  informally.  Bet- 
ter not  send  a  message.     I'll  go  for  him  myself." 

"That's  the  idea,  Mr.  Kettle,  me  man,  and  bring 
him  back  yourself,  and  then  stand  by  while  we  talk." 
"  Aye,  aye,  sir." 

The  mate  walked  briskly  out,  and  made  for  the  two 
white- faced  juniors  who  were  standing  at  the  engine- 
room  door. 

"  The  chief's  in  his  room,"  said  one  of  them. 
"  My  God,  Kettle,  he  means  death  for  every  man 
on  board,"  said  the  other. 

"  Oh,  don't  worry  your  small  heads  about  that," 
said  the  mate  confidently.  "  The  old  man's  quite  com- 
petent to  attend  to  Mr.  Little  and  the  ship,  too." 

The  chief  engineer's  room  was  just  inside  the  door, 
and  stood  at  the  head  of  the  ladder  which  led  to  the 
depths  of  the  engine-room  below,  and  at  this  moment 
the  man  himself  appeared.  He  was  stark  naked,  his 
face  drawn  and  white,  his  body  thin  as  an  Indian 
fakir's.     He  had  a  cook's  broad  meat  ax  in  his  hand. 


NO  COAL  15 

and  his  lips  were  drawn  back  from  his  teeth  like  those 
of  a  snarling  dog. 

The  mate  delivered  his  message  as  though  such  a 
get-up  was  the  most  ordinary  uniform  of  shipboard 
life. 

*'  Captain  Farnish  sends  his  compliments,  sir,  and 
would  be  glad  to  see  you  in  the  chart  house." 

"  Stand  out  of  my  path." 

"At  once,  sir,  he  said." 

"  Stand  aside." 

"  Perhaps,  if  you're  not  feeling  very  well  this  morn- 
ing, sir,  you  would  allow  me  take  your  arm." 

The  madman  rushed  and  made  a  vicious  slash  with 
his  ax.  Kettle  dodged,  and  the  blow  skimmed  his 
sleeve.  Then,  with  the  lightning  quickness  of  a  man 
who  had  been  used  all  his  life  to  rough  and  tumble 
fighting,  he  jumped  for  the  engineer  and  tried  to  trip 
him  to  the  deck.  But  he  could  get  no  hold.  Mr. 
Little  had  rubbed  himself  from  head  to  foot  with  oil 
till  he  was  as  slippery  as  an  eel,  and,  moreover,  he  had 
all  of  a  madman's  strength.  Kettle  found  himself 
slimed  from  top  to  toe,  and  flung  violently  against  the 
iron  side  of  the  house,  and  Little  raced  away  for- 
ward, ax  in  hand. 

"  For  God's  sake  let  him  go,"  said  the  second  en- 
gineer, "  and  let's  hope  he  jumps  overboard.  He's 
as  good  as  murdered  the  whole  lot  of  us." 

"What  do  you  mean?  Has  he  put  dynamite  in 
your  coffee-mill  down  there  or  something?     Here  you, 


i6      MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

both  of  you,  if  there's  anything  wrong  with  the  en- 
gines, get  below  at  once  and  put  it  straight." 

But  the  engineers  did  not  move. 

"  It's  worse  than  that,"  said  the  spokesman  gloom- 
ily. "  He's  done  us  in  the  eye  over  the  coal.  He  made 
us  believe  there  were  two  more  bunkers  full,  easily 
enough    for   the    run   home   to    Liverpool,    and    like 

d d   fools  we  believed   him.     You  see,   we  only 

joined  at  Vera  Cruz.  He'd  run  all  his  engineers  and 
stoke-hold  crew  out  of  the  ship,  because  —  well  be- 
cause — " 

"  Oh,  get  a  move  on  you." 

"  Well,  there  isn't  half  a  ton  of  coal  left  on  the  boat, 
and  we're  in  the  loneliest  part  of  all  the  lonely  seas, 
and  here  I  guess  we'll  stay  till  we  rot.  There  isn't 
one  chance  in  ten  thousand  of  any  steamer  turning 
up  that  could  tow  us  into  port  or  even  take  us  off. 
.  .  .  My  God!  look  at  that  bubbly  yellow  weed 
over  the  side  there." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   VOYAGE   OF  THE   LIFE-BOAT 

C^'T^HIS,"  said  Captain  Saturday  Famish,  "is  the 
■■'  end  of  me  professionall}^  I  shan't  be  able 
to  keep  up  my  insurance,  and  if  I  die,  it  will  mean 
workhouse  for  the  old  woman."  He  tried  to  steady 
himself  for  a  moment  and  then  hiccoughed  behind 
his  hand.  "  I  shall  apply  for  a  chapel  keeper's  job 
with  the  Calvinistic  Methodists  when  I  get  ashore. 
It's  about  what  I'm  fit  for,  and  they  ought  to  give  it 
me  if  attendance  and  subscriptions  are  remembered  in 
one's  favor." 

"  Oh,  things  will  come  all  right,  sir,  at  the  office 
when  they're  explained,"  said  the  mate.  "  You  aren't 
a  doctor.  You  can't  be  responsible  for  Mr.  Little 
going  off  his  head." 

"  When  you  have  been  at  sea  longer,  Owen,  me 
man,  you'll  understand  that  a  shipmaster  is  expected 
to  be  doctor,  lawyer,  commercial  agent,  and  clerk  of 
the  weather,  and  if  he  fails  at  any  one  of  those  jobs 
or  at  forty  others  when  they  come  along,  he's  sacked 
(although  he  may  have  been  with  the  firm  for  forty 
years),  and  there  are  ten  men  waiting  in  the  outer 
office,  ready  to  take  on  his  billet  for  less  pay.  It's  a 
dog'sh  life,  the  sea,  Owen,  me  man,  and  on  a  voyage 

'^7 


i8       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

one  is  seldom  able  to  get  a  full  whack  of  sleep.  That 
remindsh  me,  I  think  Til  just  have  a  peg  and  'ndulge 
'n  a  few  minutes'  snoosh.  'S  nothing  else  to  be  done. 
Presently,  when  we  begin  to  starve,  I  s'pose  I  shall 
have  to  stand  round  and  see  that  the  men  don't  eat 
one  another." 

"  There's  Mr.  Little,  sir,  on  the  fore  crosstrees. 
Any  message,  sir?  " 

Captain  Farnish  looked  drearily  at  the  broken 
caster  of  his  easy-chair,  and  tried  without  success  to 
stifle  another  hiccough.  "  If  I  could  only  get  the  beg- 
gar to  his  room." 

"  Aye,  aye,  sir,"  said  the  mate  briskly,  "  I'll  tell  him 
you  order  him  to  go  there,"  and  with  that  betook  him- 
self to  the  outer  deck,  and  closed  the  chart-house  door 
on  to  the  hook  behind  him. 

On  the  main  deck  below  there  were  gathered  the 
whole  of  the  Norman  Towers'  company  —  mates, 
engineers,  the  cook,  the  baker,  stewards,  the  lamp  man, 
boatswain,  the  idle  carpenter,  the  grimy  trimmers  and 
firemen,  the  all-nation  deck-hands;  and  high  upon  the 
steamer's  drab  foremast,  perched  ridiculously  on  the 
clumsy  iron  crosstrees,  the  white  naked  body  of  the 
chief  engineer  stood  out  vividly  against  the  cobalt  of 
the  midday  sky.  He  was  preaching  to  the  congrega- 
tion in  an  elaborately  conventicle  voice,  and  they,  with 
the  seafarers'  susceptibility  to  sudden,  hot,  religious 
influences,  were  listening  with  straining  ears. 

Mr.  Kettle,  the  Mate,  ran  crisply  down  the  ladder. 
"  Clear  a  gangway  here,  you  sons  of  fools,"  he  or- 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  LIFE-BOAT      19 

dered  sharply.  And  then,  "  Fore  crosstrees,  there ! 
Captain's  orders,  sir;  will  you  go  to  your  room  at 
once?  " 

By  not  so  much  as  the  flicker  of  an  eyelash  did  the 
madman  show  that  he  had  heard  the  interruption. 
He  mouthed  on  with  his  discourse.  The  sun,  star- 
ing from  the  hot  sky  above,  was  already  beginning 
to  scorch  the  skin  of  his  w^hite  back  to  an  angry 
pink. 

"  Fast,  I  tell  you,"  he  thundered  down  at  his  listen- 
ers, "  fast  if  ye  would  find  salvation;  and  that  there 
shall  be  no  backsliders  I,  even  I  have  thrust  fasting 
upon  you.  There  is  food  left  upon  this  ship,  yea  and 
drink  also,  both  strong  and  otherwise,  such  as  may 
endure  for  the  space  of  two  weeks,  and  after  that  woe, 
woe  to  the  man  that  shall  not  take  to  fasting  with 
prayer  and  free  will.     Hell  shall  have  him  hungry." 

"Just  because  you  can't  do  arithmetic  accurately, 
Mr.  Little,"  said  the  mate  acidly,  "  we  may  starve, 
and  men-  may  die,  but  each  one  will  have  to  report 
wherever  he  lands  that  he's  got  there  because  of  an 
engineer  who's  incompetent  at  his  job." 

"  I'm  as  capable  at  my  profession  as  any  engineer 
on  all  the  seas.  I  accept  criticism  from  no  brass- 
edged  cargo-tallier  whatever,  and  I'll  baptize  you  with 
blood,  my  son,  when  I've  finished  attending  to  the 
heathen.  Wherefore  listen,  all  ye  that  are  still  unre- 
generate  and  addicted  to  gluttony.  Fast,  I  say  unto 
you,  fast  from  this  day  onward  while  food  is  still 
around  you,  and  abstinence  is  not  forced  upon  you 


20       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

by  famine,  and  the  greater  reward  in  the  hereafter 
shall  be  yours." 

"  Mr.  Little,  there  is  no  getting  over  the  fact  of 
your  incompetence.  I've  seen  the  evidence  of  it  my- 
self in  your  own  shaky  handwriting,  and  signed  by 
your  own  name.  Now  you'll  agree  with  me  that  no 
man  that  had  ever  been  taught  to  write  could  scrawl 
as  illiterate  a  signature  as  yours." 

The  madman  lifted  his  ax,  and  was  evidently  in 
half  a  mind  to  throw  it  —  which  was  what  Mr.  Kettle, 
the  Mate,  was  angling  for.  But  the  wandering  eyes 
of  his  congregation  drew  him  back. 

"  Oh,  ye  of  little  concentration,"  he  shouted,  "  by 
what  loose  threads  are  your  bits  of  souls  tethered! 
By  skirt  ye  are  led  ashore,  by  a  small-sized  mate 
ye  are  driven  at  sea,  and  me  ye  will  not  attend 
to,  yea,  thought  I  offer  ye  salvation.  But  by  the  sun 
above  that  now  scorches  me,  ego,  vos  precedens,  will 
drag  you  after  me  to  Paradise." 

"  You  couldn't  do  it,"  said  the  mate.  "  You're 
as  incompetent  either  to  lead  or  to  drive  in  the  straight 
path,  as  you  are  to  make  out  an  accurate  estimate  of 
distance  run,  and  coal  remaining  in  bunkers.  Man, 
there's  no  getting  over  the  evidence  of  your  own  daily 
engine-room  reports.  They'd  disgrace  a  bigamist, 
sailing  his  first  trip  in  a  dago  tramp's  stoke-hold. 
They—" 

"  Whiz! "  came  the  ax,  winking  as  it  span  down- 
ward through  the  southern  sunlight.  The  mate 
dodged  it  deftly,  and  it  skated  along  the  decks  be- 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  LIFE-BOAT      21 

tween  two  shrinking  lines  of  men,  and  then  plucking 
a  greenheart  belaying-pin  from  the  rail,  he  ran  for- 
ward and  swung  himself  into  the  fore  rigging. 

He  went  up  the  ratlines  at  racing  speed,  and  the 
naked  man  on  the  crosstrees  leaped  to  his  feet,  and 
stood  balancing  there  with  one  hand  on  the  starboard 
topmost  shroud,  swaying  to  the  roll  of  the  ship. 

"  ,You  are  bringing  me  food,"  he  screamed;  "you 
shall  not  make  me  lose  my  high-class  soul  by  forcing 
me  to  break  my  fast.  I  will  swim  to  Liverpool,  and 
report  you  to  the  Board  of  Trade." — And  with  that, 
waiting  cannily  till  the  Norman  Tozvers  rolled  to  star- 
board, and  the  deep  blue  of  the  Sargasso  Sea  lay  be- 
neath him,  he  jumped  outward,  and  dived  feet  fore- 
most. 

Mr.  Kettle's  action  was  prompt  enough.  Even 
while  the  madman  was  in  mid-air,  he  hailed  the  officer 
of  the  watch  to  lower  away  the  starboard  quarter- 
boat.  Then  slipping  quickly  down  himself,  he  ran 
across  the  decks  and  looked  over  the  rail.  He  knew 
that  Mr.  Little  could  swim,  and  only  wished  to  re- 
assure himself  that  he  had  not  been  stunned  by  his 
dive. 

The  Norman  Tozvers  had  lost  her  way  by  this 
time,  and  lay  in  the  trough  of  the  great  blue  ocean 
swells  leaking  a  thin  trickle  of  steam.  The  spot 
where  the  engineer  had  hit  the  sea  was  marked  by  a 
patch  of  white  which  bubbled  like  soda-water.  Mr. 
Kettle  jumped  to  the  rail  and  stood  there  poised.  He 
was  a  poor  man  and  always  a  dandy  about  his  dress, 


22       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

and  as  he  had  a  cat's  disHke  for  getting  his  clothes 
wet  or  soiled,  he  did  not  want  to  jump  overboard  and 
spoil  a  suit  that  he  could  ill  afford  to  replace,  unless 
the  engineer  plainly  showed  that  he  wanted  assistance. 
So  when  the  man's  white  face  appeared,  and  he  spat 
out  a  mouthful  of  weed  and  water  and  set  off  swim- 
ming at  a  sturdy  side-stroke  for  the  northeast,  the 
mate  sang  out  an  ironical  "  Good  voyage,"  and  went 
to  the  upper  deck  to  oversee  the  lowering  of  the  quar- 
ter-boat. 

The  davits  swung  outboard,  the  tackles  squeaked 
like  a  parcel  of  angry  cats,  the  boat  splashed  into  the 
water,  unhooked  and  pushed  off.  Oars  straddled  out 
from  her  and  beat  the  water  unevenly.  Slowly  she 
scratched  her  way  over  the  hill  and  dale  of  the  sea. 
The  engineer,  when  he  heard  the  clank  of  the  looms 
against  the  thole-pins,  swam  to  the  farther  side  of  an 
islet  of  the  orange-yellow  weed,  and  it  looked  as  if 
they  were  going  to  have  trouble  with  him.  But  words 
passed  in  the  boat,  and  one  of  the  rowers  shipped  his 
oar  and  stood  up.  He  picked  up  some  small  line 
which  lay  on  the  untidy  floor  boards,  made  a  running 
bowline  on  one  end,  arranged  some  coils  to  his  satis- 
faction, threw,  and  hauled  taut.  The  man  caught  the 
engineer  round  the  neck  with  his  first  heave,  and 
(after  the  severe  methods  of  the  sea)  choked  the  fight 
out  of  him  before  he  brought  him  up  through  the 
clogging  bubbly  weed  to  the  side  of  the  boat.  There- 
after the  madman  was  brought  on  board,  dried, 
dressed,  and  deposited  in  his  own  room,  the  door  of 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  LIFE-BOAT      23 

which  a  leisurely  carpenter  proceeded  to  decorate  with 
hasp  and  padlock. 

The  mate  marched  smartly  off  to  the  chart  house 
to  report.  He  knocked,  lifted  the  hook,  and  opened 
the  door,  and  grasped  the  situation  at  a  glance.  Cap- 
tain Saturday  Farnish  had  indulged  in  that  one  more 
peg  —  and  several  others  to  ram  it  home. 

The  mate  stepped  inside,  and  this  time  shut  the  door 
closely.  He  drew  curtains  across  the  side  windows 
that  the  curious  might  not  look  through,  and  then 
made  his  formal  report. 

"  Chief  engineer  gone  to  his  room,  sir." 

"You're  a  very  capable  off'sr  —  Owen,  me  man. 
Given  you  a  most  unpleasant  job,  I'm  sure.  Been  with 
you  in  spirit  all  along  but  couldn't  get  on  deck.  De- 
tained chart  house,  severe  malarial  symptoms.  Fatal, 
expose  sea  air.  Stayed  in  here  very  much  against  my 
will,  taking  neshessary  drugs." 

"  Yes,  sir,  quite  so.  Second  engineer  reports  it's 
quite  true  about  the  coal.  I  told  him  it  was  a  trifle 
which  would  cost  him  his  ticket,  and  as  he  was  saucy 
I  had  to  attend  to  him.  But  that  doesn't  get  over  the 
coal  —  and  the  grub.  One  we  haven't  got,  the  other 
we  shall  have  less  of  every  day." 

"  'Nless  you  can  arrange  for  the  sea-gulls  to  bring 
bath  buns,  like,  wasn'  it  Joshua  did,  for  the  ravens?  " 

"  My  idea,  sir,  was  that  you'd  like  me  to  rig  a  life- 
boat, and  go  off  and  see  if  I  couldn't  pick  up  assistance. 
I  was  sure  you'd  think  each  moment  was  of  impor- 
tance, as  every  bit  of  delay  means  so  much  more  food 


24       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

and  drink  consumed,  and  you'd  want  me  to  be  off  at 


once." 


"But  where  to,  Owen,  me  man?  You're  not 
likely  to  find  boat  to  tow  us  thish  side  New  Jeru- 
salem." 

"  There's  some  sort  of  a  steam  lane  from  the  North- 
ern Ports  to  the  West  Indies  about  twelve  degrees 
south  of  where  we  are  now,  sir,  and  I  concluded  you'd 
like  me  to  sail  down  to  cut  that,  and  then  if  I  didn't 
see  anybody,  hold  on  backward  and  across  till  I  did." 

"  You  couldn't  find  the  old  packet  again,  once  you'd 
left  her.  Much  better  stay  'n  let's  all  starve  comfort- 
ably together." 

"  I  shall  take  note  of  the  current  sets  and  the  wind 
from  day  to  day,  sir,  and  shal'n't  be  far  out  in  cal- 
culating your  drift.  They  rubbed  that  sort  of  thing 
pretty  well  into  one  in  the  navigation  school.  I  think 
you  may  expect  me  back  with  assistance  inside  a 
week." 

Captain  Famish  applied  a  handkerchief  to  his  eyes. 
*'  You'll  excuse  these  tears,  Owen,  me  man,  but  pros- 
pect mosht  distressful.  I  always  looked  forward  to 
a  high-class  funeral,  Birkenhead  Cemetery,  with  you 
and  the  old  woman  and  the  kids  in  the  wake  of  the 
hearse,  a  sort  of  poem  in  white  pocket-handkerchiefs 
and  crape.  'S  been  one  of  the  happy  dreams  of  my 
life.  Mosht  distressing  die  out  here  like  a  black  beetle 
in  a  kerosene  can,  unmourned,  unwept  for.  And  my 
steward  tells  me  whisky's  running  out." 

"  Yes,  sir,  the  Towers'  going  to  be  a  dry  ship  till 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  LIFE-BOAT      25 

I  get  back  with  relief.  Then  I  may  take  it  to  be  your 
.wish  that  I  should  get  under  way  at  once  ?  " 

"At  onche,"  said  Captain  Farnish  with  much  grav- 
ity. "  Scheme  I've  outlined  to  you,  Mr.  Kettle  me  — 
Mr.  Kettle,  me  man,  is  outcome  much  anxious  delib  — 
dolab  —  I  should  say  de-lib-er-ashun,  and  I  have  full 
confidence  your  ability  carry  it  out.  Full  confidence. 
I  may  say  fullest.  Though  suffering  severe  attack 
malarious  shymptoms  myself,  as  vide  entry  in  log,  still 
I  have  fullest  confidence  in  mate  of  my  own  upbring- 
ing " —  Captain  Farnish's  head  dropped  upon  his 
breast,  and  he  permitted  himself  to  snore  with  relief. 

"  Then  good-by,  sir." 

"  Goo-by.  I  wasn't  asleep,  if  that's  your  idea,  and 
to  prove  it  I  give  you  las'  word.  My  motto  is  '  Leave 
everything  to  the  mate.'  Remarkably  confident  —  I 
should  sa}'  com-pet-ent  —  man,  my  mate,  Mis'  Kell. 
As  I  said  before,  goo-by." 

The  big  red  velvet  arm-chair  in  which  Captain 
Saturday  Farnish  reposed  jarred  up  and  down  on  its 
broken  caster  with  every  roll  of  the  ship,  and  before 
leaving,  the  mate  took  down  Norie's  Epitome  of  Navi- 
gation from  the  book-shelf,  and  shored  it  up  on  a 
steady  base.  Then  he  set  his  watch  by  the  ship's 
chronometer,  and  went  out  once  more  on  deck  and 
gave  crisp  and  lucid  commands  to  those  concerned  in 
the  rigging  and  victualing  of  the  port  life-boat. 

His  last  action  before  leaving  was  to  change  the 
uniform  tliat  the  chief  engineer  had  slimed  with  oil 
for  a  fresh  rig.     It  is  not  many  men  who  would  have 


26       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

given  thought  for  their  clothes  before  starting  on  an 
open  boat  voyage  in  mid-Atlantic  that  could  only  be 
classed  as  desperate,  but  I  can  merely  report  Mr.  Ket- 
tle as  I  found  him. 

The  mate's  choice  of  crew  for  the  life-boat  was  also 
typical  of  the  man.  Skill  would  be  needed  for  the 
trip,  strength,  endurance,  and  above  all  things,  obedi- 
ence. And  yet  Mr.  Kettle,  knowing  to  the  full  the 
weakness  of  every  member  of  the  Norman  Towers' 
complement,  deliberately  picked  as  his  associates  the 
five  worst  men  on  board.  He  even  included  among 
them  the  black  who  only  that  morning  had  tried  to 
knife  him. 

I  could  never  extract  from  Kettle  the  reason  for  his 
selection,  and  so  can  only  surmise.  Two  theories  oc- 
cur to  me.  Perhaps  he  took  away  those  particular 
rapscallions  with  him  in  the  boat  so  that  there  should 
be  no  chance  of  their  annoying  poor,  weak,  old  Farnish 
on  the  Norman  Towers.  Perhaps  he  took  them  to 
enjoy  the  risk  and  luxury  of  taming  them  at  close 
quarters.  Indeed,  both  considerations  must  have 
weighed  with  him.  But  I  believe  it  was  the  last  that 
swayed  him  most.  He  was  always  a  man  with  a 
singular  taste  for  what  he  called  "  trouble  ". 

When  the  life-boat  was  ready,  Mr.  Kettle  looked  up 
at  the  row  of  worried  faces  that  stared  down  at  him 
from  the  steamer's  rail,  gave  a  curt  wave,  and  ordered 
his  men  to  shove  off. 

"  And  now,"  said  he,  "  do  anj^  of  you  farmers  know 
how  to  sail  a  boat  ?  " 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  LIFE-BOAT      27 

It  appeared  that  none  of  them  did.  They  were 
steamer  sailors  all  of  them,  able  to  drive  a  winch,  paint 
and  clean  paint,  take  a  wheel,  or  rig  a  derrick. 

"  Well,"  said  the  mate  with  an  unkind  grin,  "  I'll 
teach  you,  and  when  you  next  step  ashore,  if  ever  you 
get  there,  you'll  be  smart  enough  fore-and-afters  to 
sail  as  deck-hands  in  an  American  Cup  race.  But 
dead  or  alive,  you've  just  one  use  at  present  —  and 
that's  as  ballast.     Pile  yourselves  up  to  windward." 

They  did  it  sullenly. 

"  You  with  the  bald  head  there,  smile.  D'ye  hear 
me,  you  son  of  a  can-opener?  Smile,  or  by  James, 
I'll  knock  your  yellow  teeth  down  your  throat.  Don't 
you  dare  to  throw  black  looks  at  me.  Now  we'll  just 
call  watches.  I'm  captain,  and  I'll  take  the  port. 
Jenkins,  as  you've  the  only  clean  face  at  your  end  of 
the  boat,  I'll  appoint  you  chief  officer,  and  you  take 
the  starboard  watch.  Let  me  see!  I'll  give  you  the 
Dutchman,  and  Baldy  here,  with  the  winning  smile. 
And  that  leaves  me  Olsen  and  the  Senegambian,  who 
still  thinks  he's  going  to  get  that  pig-knife  of  his  into 
my  ribs  before  we're  through  with  this  boat  trip. 
Well,  Mr.  Jenkins,  as  we're  shipping  a  good  deal  of 
water  you  can  set  your  starbowlines  to  bail,  and  the 
port  watch  can  shake  out  a  reef.  She'll  carry  a  bit 
more  canvas,  if  she's  humored,  and  time's  the  essence 
pf  the  contract  just  now  if  we're  to  save  the  Towers." 

Rapidly  behind  them  the  disabled  steamer  dipped  out 
of  sight  below  the  sierra  of  the  horizon,  and  pres- 
ently they  had  the  heaving  circus  of  ocean  to  them- 


28       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

selves.  Great  orange-yellow  islets  of  the  Sargasso 
weed  sprawled  here  and  there  over  the  rich  blue  of  the 
water,  and  these,  when  possible,  they  avoided;  irides- 
cent flying-fish  scuttered  along  beside  them  and  before 
their  bows;  and  astern  a  brace  of  sea-fowl  that  had 
detached  themselves  from  the  steamer's  convoy,  kept 
accurate  station.  The  blackguardly  crew  found  some- 
thing vaguely  disquieting  in  the  presence  of  these  birds, 
and  at  first  observed  their  coming  with  gloomy  silence, 
and  then  with  articulate  grumblings. 

"  Not  here  for  nothing,  them  birds,"  said  Bald- 
head.  "They  know  a  thing  or  two.  It  isn't  for 
galley  scraps  they're  following  this  boat." 

"  Dey  say  dose  gulls  is  de  ghosts  of  ole  sailors 
trowned  at  sea,"  said  Olsen.  "  I  vonders  vhat  it  feels 
like  to  fly?" 

"  They  picks  yo'  eyes  out  befo'  yo'  daid,"  said  the 
Carolina  black.  "  I  sho'  don'  like  the  neb  of  that 
bird  dere  to  stabboard.  He's  mos'  as  bigs's  a  Tampico 
turkey-buzzard." 

A  puff  of  squall  poured  down  against  them.  Ket- 
tle luffed  not  an  inch  but  kept  the  boat  rigidly  on  her 
course.  The  wave-tops  (as  he  intended)  poured  in 
over  the  lee  gunwale. 

"  Bail,  you  sinful  malingerers,"  he  bawled  at  them. 
"  Bail  and  keep  your  legs  dry  and  the  ship  afloat. 
I'll  attend  to  your  souls  when  the  time  comes.  Mr. 
Jenkins,  you  come  aft  and  take  the  lee  tiller  beside 
me.  You've  got  to  learn  to  handle  the  boat  some- 
time, and  a  nice  light  breeze  like  this  is  just  the  time 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  LIFE-BOAT      29 

to  begin.  There  you  are!  Now  you've  got  her  all 
by  your  shivering  self,  and  mind  you  keep  her  ramp- 
ing full.  Don't  you  dare  to  luff  for  a  foot  of  wave- 
top." 

The  men  were  scared  and  sullen,  and  the  method 
of  their  schooling  was  brutal,  but  they  improved  hour 
by  hour.  There  was  a  spare  tiller  in  the  boat,  a  lusty 
cudgel  of  oak,  and  this  the  mate  used  vigorously  over 
their  heads  and  shoulders  whenever  they  were  slow, 
or  dense,  or  in  any  way  short  of  the  perfect  sea- 
man. Discipline  was  carried  on  big-ship  fashion. 
They  fed  at  appointed  hours  on  a  sparing  ration; 
they  drank  lime-juice  in  their  musty  water,  as  ordained 
by  the  British  Board  of  Trade;  and  bells  were  struck 
every  half-hour  on  a  tin  bucket  with  ding-dong 
regularity. 

Twice  they  passed  derelicts,  stuck  in  the  Sargasso 
eddy.  The  first  was  a  steamboat  with  only  her  fore- 
part showing,  green  with  sea-grasses.  The  other 
was  a  four-masted  schooner  spruce  with  new  paint, 
obviously  a  new  arrival.  Here  was  a  sea  mystery 
that  would  have  tempted  the  most  incurious.  Here 
also  would  be  some  very  obvious  pickings.  But  the 
crew  were  by  this  time  under  a  good  discipline  and 
did  no  more  than  look  longingly  at  her.  They  rose 
her  over  the  horizon,  drove  past  her,  and  dropped 
her  under  the  horizon  astern,  and  as  Mr.  Kettle,  the 
Mate,  made  no  suggestion  of  boarding,  no  one  else 
dared  to  voice  a  hint  in  that  direction. 

They  made  their  southing  and  got  to  the  far  side 


30       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

of  the  steam  lane  without  seeing  smoke  or  spar  of 
traffic,  and  then  after  beating  tediously  back  and  forth 
for  another  day,  were  overtaken  by  a  gale  which  was 
too  heavy  for  even  the  mate's  hard  daring  to  carry 
sail  in.  He  held  on,  it  is  true,  till  his  men  were  three 
parts  dead  with  terror,  and  then  with  his  boat  half 
water-logged,  rounded  her  to,  and  rode  out  the  breeze 
to  a  sea-anchor  of  spars. 

Twice  during  this  blow  they  saw  steamers  to  wind- 
ward of  them  heading  for  the  islands,  and  three  brine- 
washed  boats  plunging  eastward,  but  all  were  out  of 
hail,  or,  what  is  more  to  the  point,  made  no  response 
to  any  signals  Mr.  Kettle  or  his  men  could  fly. 

Rain  pelted  down  on  them  during  the  squalls,  and 
they  caught  it  in  the  sails,  and  decanted  the  grimy 
brackish  proceeds  into  their  water  beakers.  Flying- 
fish  blew  on  board  in  the  spindrift,  and  these  they  ate 
raw  and  wished  there  were  more  of  them.  And  once 
a  brace  of  bonitos  followed  the  smaller  fry,  and  they 
gorged  on  these  and  for  once  were  pleasantly  filled. 
The  small  amount  of  food  they  had  brought  from 
the  Norman  Tozvers  had  run  out  by  this  time,  and 
they  were  all  looking  thin  and  miserable  and  wolfish. 

When  once  more  the  gale  ceased,  and  the  boat  under 
snugged-down  canvas  was  again  thrashing  her  way 
up  to  the  steam  lane  which  now  lay  to  the  northward, 
the  crew  were  unwise  enough  to  plan  mutiny.  They 
collected  up  forward  and  put  their  heads  together, 
and  from  among  them  presently  came  Jenkins,  half- 
shamefaced,  half-defiant,  and  sat  down  aft. 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  LIFE-BOAT      31 

"  I  stand  by  yoit,  sir,"  he  said  to  the  mate. 

"  Of  course,"  said  Kettle,  "  you  have  to,  since  I 
made  you  an  officer.  And  it  will  be  good  practice 
for  you,  though  if  I  had  been  put  to  it,  I  could  have 
handled  the  whole  outfit  without  straining  myself." 

The  others  heard  and  their  courage  oozed;  and 
when  it  came  to  the  point  they  put  as  a  request  what 
they  had  intended  to  dish  up  as  a  command. 

They  were  hungry,  thirsty,  miserable ;  the  Sargasso 
was  a  desert ;  they  were  one  and  all  covered  with  salt- 
water boils;  provisions  and  water  were  all  gone;  and 
presently  they  would  all  die,  and  the  boat  would  blow 
about  on  that  unkind  sea,  a  water-logged  derelict  full 
of  corpses,  li  they  ran  for  the  nearest  land,  which 
would  offer  food,  drink,  shelter,  warmth,  they  might 
yet  escape  with  bare  life.  But  it  must  be  now,  with- 
out a  moment's  delay     .     .     .     now     .     .     .     now. 

Baldhead  was  the  speaker.  He  was  quite  a  young 
man,  with  a  fine  emotional  touch  to  his  oratory. 

"  Really  finished?  "  the  mate  inquired  when  he  had 
talked  himself  to  a  standstill. 

"  Yes,  sir,  that  is  what  we  have  to  say." 

"  And  you  said  it  very  well.  I  wish  I'd  brought 
along  the  accordion.  I  should  like  to  set  that  tale  to 
music  and  hear  you  sing  it  —  you  son  of  a  play- 
actress.  You're  overfed  and  underworked,  that's 
what's  the  matter  with  you.  You're  spoiling  for  the 
want  of  a  job,  and,  by  James,  I'm  the  man  to  give 
you  one!  This  boat  wants  smartening  up.  So  to 
begin  with,   you  take  your  knife   and   scrape  spars. 


12       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

The  Senegambian,  who  has  also  a  knife  which  he's 
aching  to  use,  will  help  you.  Now  jump,  you  sweep, 
or,  by  the  living  James,  I'll  knock  more  stars  out  of 
you  with  the  tiller  than  ever  were  stuck  up  in  the 
sky!" 

They  jumped.  The  others,  unbidden,  set  about 
coiling  ropes  and  cleaning  the  floor  boards  of  uncon- 
sidered trifles  of  litter,  and  Mr.  Kettle,  the  Mate, 
watched  proceedings  with  an  acid  smile. 

The  men  were  all  hollow-eyed  and,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Baldhead,  shaggy  beyond  belief.  The 
hair  of  the  rest  had  grown  to  an  incredible  length. 
Their  beards  bristled  uncouthly.  Their  cheeks  were 
streaked  salt-white  in  the  wrinkles.  Their  clothes, 
shabby  and  darned  and  rotten  to  start  with,  were 
shrunk  and  sea-bleached,  and  moreover  torn  to  fan- 
tastic fluttering  rags.  The  men  had  no  heart  among 
them  for  patching  and  mending  on  that  desperate 
boat  voyage. 

Even  Mr.  Kettle,  the  usually  immaculate  mate, 
was  little  better  than  the  others.  The  blue  serge  of 
his  uniform  was  so  impregnated  with  salt  that  no 
hand  brushing  would  unbleach  it;  the  brass  buttons 
and  gold  lace  were  tarnished  to  a  dingy  green;  a 
pocket  was  torn  and  dangled  limply;  and  in  more 
places  than  one,  threads  had  rotted  and  the  seams 
gaped.  But  worst  of  all  were  his  cheeks  and  chin. 
These  it  had  been  his  pride  to  shave  "  a  day  below  ". 
He  had  brought  a  razor  with  him  in  the  boat,  wrapped 
in  an  oiled  rag  to  shelter  it  from  rust.     But  the  scour- 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  LIFE-BOAT      Z3 

ing  of  the  seas  had  been  too  much  for  the  flimsy 
safeguard.  The  boat  was  sodden  with  sea  water  for 
days  together,  and  the  blade  succumbed  to  the  brine. 
Its  surface  discolored;  its  edge  grew  gapped,  till  to 
use  it  meant  gory  torment;  and  finally  it  refused 
even  the  semblance  of  duty.  Mr.  Kettle  cursed  and 
flung  it  savagely  into  a  pursuing  wave  crest.  And 
thereafter  red  bristles  sprouted  over  his  haggard  face, 
and  he  loathed  the  sight  of  himself  whenever  he  used 
the  inside  of  his  watchcase  as  a  mirror  when  he 
combed  his  hair. 

Baldhead,  at  these  moments  of  the  toilet,  felt  that 
he  got  a  little  of  his  own  back.  He  would  rub  his 
smooth  cheeks  and  chin,  and  smile  thoughtfully  at  the 
horizon;  and  although  the  mate  was  quick  to  resent 
his  insolence  in  practical  shape,  Baldhead  always 
licked  his  salt-cracked  lips  appreciatively  when  the 
chance  came  round  for  his  little  play. 

Luck,  in  the  way  of  picking  up  a  steamboat,  was 
certainly  hard  with  them;  but  luck  decidedly  came  to 
their  aid  more  than  once  when  starvation  seemed  cer- 
tain. I  have  mentioned  the  full  meal  they  had  on  the 
big  bonitos.  Another  day  the  impossible  happened, 
and  their  two  attendant  sea-fowl  altered  course  too 
suddenly,  steered  into  one  another,  and  dropped,  dis- 
abled, into  the  water.  Their  bodies  were  eaten  down 
to  the  last  fiber,  and  the  starving  men  cursed  a  mean 
heaven  that  had  left  the  bones  hollow  instead  of  pack- 
ing them  with  marrow. 

But  the  great  windfall   was   a  crate  of  bananas,^ 


34       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

washed  overboard  from  some  fruit-boat's  deckload. 
They  were  big,  coarse,  West  Indian  bananas,  but  to 
the  starved  palates  they  were  ambrosia.  The  men  ate 
six  apiece  for  the  first  meal,  and  felt  that  any  hard- 
ships were  worth  going  through  to  know  a  bliss  like 
that. 

It  was  at  the  next  midday,  while  Jenkins  sailed 
the  boat  and  the  mate  was  standing  up  with  his  sex- 
tant in  the  stern-sheets,  that  they  saw  a  steamer's 
smoke  over  the  saucer-rim  of  the  horizon. 

Presently  they  were  able  to  make  out  the  trucks  of 
her  masts,  and  thereafter  they  rose  her  rapidly.  They 
were  right  in  her  track.     Here  was  rescue  at  last. 

The  ragged  crew  in  their  joy  stood  up  and  danced, 
but  Mr.  Kettle,  the  Mate,  had  a  fine  sense  of  dis- 
cipline. When  he  wanted  baboon  tricks  he  would 
let  them  know.  In  the  meanwhile  he  wished  them  to 
carry  on  duty  as  before.  "  And  send  aft  the  Sene- 
gambian,"  said  he. 

"Sar?" 

"  Weren't  you  in  a  barber  shop  once,  before  shore 
got  too  hot  and  you  had  to  come  to  sea  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sar.     I'se  a  sure  'nuf  tonsorial  artist." 

"  Good.  Not  got  the  usual  nigger's  razor  con- 
cealed about  your  person  ?  " 

"  No,  sar.     Never  carry  such  a  thing." 

"  First  United  States  nigger  I  ever  met  who  didn't. 
Well,  take  that  pig-knife  you're  so  fond  of,  and  bor- 
row Baldy's,  and  sharpen  yours  against  his.     Savvy  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sar." 


JHE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  LIFE-BOAT      35 


It 


That's  right.  Now  use  one  blade  against  the 
other,  scissor  fashion,  and  trim  my  beard.  FU  have 
it  cHpped  torpedo  shape." 

The  big  evil-faced  negro  gasped.  "  Trim  yo' 
beard?" 

"  That's  what  I  said.  If  you  do  it  well,  Fll  give 
you  threepence.  If  you  make  a  hash  of  it,  I'm  lam 
you  with  the  tiller." 

For  an  instant  murder  peeped  out  from  the  black 
man's  onyx  eyes.  Mr.  Kettle  expected  it,  looked  for 
it,  and  nodded  acknowledgment.  "  You  won't  try 
and  cut  my  throat,  because  you  know  I'd  have  those 
two  eyes  of  yours  gouged  out  before  you  got  even 
started.  Come  now,  my  lad,  get  a  move  on,  or  we'll 
have  that  steamboat  alongside." 

The  mate  put  out  his  chin,  and  the  ex-tonsorial 
artist  plied  his  trade.  The  other  men  watched  with 
the  eyes  of  fascination. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  CHARITY  OF  THE  SEAS 

/"^  OB  ALT  sky  above,  and  the  deep  blue  of  the 
^^  Sargasso  Sea  patched  with  islets  of  orange- 
yellow  weed.  On  it  a  black  steamer,  high-bowed  and 
stump-masted,  surging  along  with  a  bone  In  her  teeth 
toward  the  south  and  west.  Also  a  white  ship's  life- 
boat, rigged  with  mildewed  lug-sail  and  jib,  and 
manned  by  a  crew  of  gaunt  scarecrows.  The  life- 
boat is  lying-to  across  the  steamer's  track,  and  the 
steamer  wears  her  standard  compass  on  the  top  of  a 
ten-foot  mast  painted  banana-green.  That  is  the  pic- 
ture to  carry  in  mind. 

Mr.  Kettle,  the  Mate,  after  regarding  the  truculent 
look  of  his  red  torpedo  beard  at  many  angles  in  the 
back  of  his  watchcase,  finally  approved,  dived  in  his 
pocket,  and  produced  three  green-stained  pennies 
which  he  presented  to  his  barber. 

"  Hope  to  have  the  continuance  o'  yo'  custom,  sar," 
said  that  artist,  dusting  the  debris  of  the  operation 
from  his  patron  with  professional  sibilation. 

"  I'll  recommend  you  to  the  warders,"  said  the 
mate  dryly,   "  when  I  call  on  visiting-days.     Hands, 


THE  CHARITY  OF  THE  SEAS  37 

take  in  sail.  Lower  away  smartly^  now.  Unship  that 
mast.  Out  oars;  we  mustn't  keep  that  fellow  wait- 
ing. He  seems  in  a  hurry.  A  Dutchman,  too,  to 
judge  by  that  sawn-off  smoke-stack.     Give  way." 

Up  till  now  the  steamer  had  been  bearing  directly 
down  upon  them.  But  as  she  drew  nearer  she  seemed 
to  be  sheering  out  of  her  course  a  trifle  to  the  north- 
ward. There  was  a  long  heavy  ocean  swell  running, 
and  she  yawed  a  good  deal  in  her  steering,  and  it  was 
hard  to  make  out  exactly  where  she  was  aiming  for; 
but  Mr.  Kettle,  with  an  Englishman's  contempt  for 
the  German  mariner,  set  this  down  to  the  inefficiency 
of  her  wheel  quartermaster  and  to  the  watch-officer 
who  oversaw  him. 

The  vessel  was  close  aboard  of  them  by  this  time 
and  they  could  read  her  name,  Rhein,  in  dull  brass 
letters  on  the  flaring  curve  of  her  bows.  She  had  a 
high  upper  bridge,  with  three  square-shouldered  of- 
ficers on  it  who  swayed  rigidly  to  the  roll.  One,  a 
big  fellow,  with  a  fair  spade-shaped  beard  and  much 
uniform,  was  obviously  the  captain.  He  wore  spec- 
tacles. He  stared  at  the  boat  pointedly,  but  neither 
waved  nor  made  other  signs ;  and  Mr.  Kettle,  to  whom 
it  was  a  point  of  honor  not  to  make  first  advances, 
sat  rigidly  by  his  tiller  and  sent  out  no  sign  either. 

The  Rhein  surged  up,  drew  level,  and  passed.  On 
the  sterns  of  the  boats  that  hung  in  her  davits  they 
read  that  her  port  was  Hamburg,  and  probably  every 
soul  in  the  boat  had  hot  thoughts  about  that  city,  but 
for  long  enough  uot  a  word  was  uttered. 


38       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

The  black  man  was  the  first  to  give  tongue. 

"  Sar,  sar,"  he  yammered  after  the  dwindhng  stern, 
while  the  life-boat  rocked  in  the  cream  of  the  wake. 
"  Mistah  Captain,  for  de  love  o'  Gawd  don't  leave  us. 
I  tell  you  for  true  we's  starvin'.  Oh,  sar,  stop  yo' 
steamah!  Hi,  you  son-of-a-dog-of-a-Dutchman,  we's 
gwine  for  to  die  if  you  don'  stop'n  pick  us  up." 

Then  his  boat  mate,  the  German,  chimed  in,  curs- 
ing the  Rhein  and  all  she  carried  in  a  tongue  that 
ought  to  have  appealed  to  her.  And  to  him  were 
added  all  the  boat's  complement  with  one  exception 
as  chorus.  But  Mr.  Kettle,  the  Mate,  sat  by  the  tiller 
without  a  word,  and  without  change  of  countenance. 

As  she  drew  out  of  earshot,  a  white- faced  man  with 
an  inflamed  nose  ran  aft  along  the  steamer's  decks, 
and  stood  on  her  taffrail  holding  on  by  the  ensign 
staff.  He  howled  out  sentences  which  they  could  not 
catch,  and  waved  a  grimy  hand.  Then  a  woman 
came  and  joined  him,  her  skirts  blowing  out  shrewdly 
in  the  wind  of  the  steamer's  passage.  She  also  waved 
her  hand  and  shouted,  and  though  the  tones  of  her 
shriller  voice  reached  them,  they  could  not  make  out 
the  words.  And  every  instant  the  steamer  grew 
smaller  and  more  distant. 

The  crew  of  the  life-boat  still  shouted  and  sobbed 
and  danced,  but  presently  the  grim  little  mate  pulled 
them  up  sharply  enough  with  a  curt  command  for 
*'  Silence  in  the  boat !  " 

"If  you've  all  quite  finished  giving  a  free  variety 
show  for  that  painted  Dutchman,  perhaps  you'll  re- 


THE  CHARITY  OF  THE  SEAS  39 

step  that  mast,  and  let's  be  getting  under  way  again. 
tWe've  no  more  time  to  waste !  " 

Baldhead  flopped  to  a  heap  on  the  floor  boards. 
"  What's  the  good  ?  "  he  muttered.  "  We're  as  good 
as  dead  now." 

"  You  may  be,"  snapped  the  mate.  "  I'm  not.  I've 
got  to  live  for  a  lot  of  things;  among  others  to  pay 
my  compliments  to  that  glass-eyed  skipper  with  the 
tow  beard,  and  to  skin  that  pirate  with  the  incandes- 
cent nose  who  mocked  at  me  from  the  poop  staff. 
By  James,  if  you  swivel-kneed  blighters  are  going  to 
weaken  now  and  let  those  skunks  live  unpunished,  I'm 
not.  I'm  going  to  teach  them  sea  manners  if  I  go 
to  Berlin  and  set  fire  to  their  blessed  emperor's  palace 
to  do  it. —  Step  that  mast,  you  jelly-backed  sons  of 
sin." 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    WATCH    ON    THE    "  RHEIN  " 

Or^HOUGH  black  despair  rose  heavy  on  the 
■^  shoulders  of  the  marooned  crew,  white-hot  rage 
thrilled  through  every  artery  of  their  officer's  small 
body.  It  was  not  so  much  the  brutal  desertion,  which 
left  them  to  perish  there  in  the  desert  of  the  ocean 
that  affected  him,  as  the  insolence  of  a  mere  German 
daring  to  do  this  thing. 

Like  all  Britons  and  Americans  who  use  the  sea, 
he  looked  down  upon  the  Dago  and  the  Dutchman 
as  inferiors  in  craft,  wit,  pluck,  and  bodily  strength. 
Time  after  time  he  had  driven  whole  crews  of  these 
men  to  do  his  bidding  with  no  heavier  weapons  than 
a  greenheart  belay ing-pin  and  a  mouthful  of  hard 
words,  so  that  for  a  Dutchman  to  disregard  his  signal 
—  his  urgency  signal  —  was   unbelievable. 

He  re-rigged  his  boat,  and  once  more  got  her  under 
way.  But  passion  did  not  interfere  with  his  clear- 
ness of  head.  For  a  sea-sodden  ship's  life-boat  to 
give  chase  to  a  steamboat,  however  low  her  power, 
was  ridiculous.  The  mate  was  the  last  man  on  earth 
to  wish  for  this.  His  plan  was  to  patrol  once  more 
the  steam  lane,  pick  up  a  more  genial  rescuer,  and 

'40 


THE  WATCH  ON  THE  "  RHEIN  "       41 

take  her  off  to  the  help  of  the  Norman  Towers,  as 
already  arranged;  and  to  this  end  (and  with  the  aid 
of  the  oak  tiller)  he  once  more  hammered  his  dis- 
heartened crew  into  activity  and  submission. 

But  half-way  to  the  horizon  hung  a  portent  which 
for  long  enough  he  disregarded.  The  Rhein  had 
shown  them  her  stern,  had  steamed  away,  and  grown 
smaller  and  smaller  still.  But  at  a  certain  point  this 
diminution  lost  its  fixed  progression;  and  the  vessel 
lay  there  sawing  up  and  down  over  gentle  swells,  and 
remaining  of  a  constant  bigness. 

Between  boat  and  steamer  lay  many  blue  acres  of 
the  Sargasso  Sea,  patched  here  and  there  with  neat 
gardens  of  orange-yellow  herbage;  and  the  fact  of 
her  having  come  to  a  standstill  was  slow  in  making 
itself  understood.  The  men  glared  after  the  steamer 
sullenly,  resentfully,  mutteringly;  and  not  till  their 
officer  had  made  the  discovery  himself,  and  called 
upon  them  to  flatten  in  sheets  so  that  the  life-boat 
might  bear  up  in  her  wake,  did  the  fact  of  her  stop- 
page dawn  upon  them. 

The  change  in  their  demeanor  was  natural  enough. 
Jenkins  and  the  German  stood  up  together,  twined 
arms,  and  footed  it  in  an  uncouth  dance.  Olsen,  the 
Dane,  fainted.  Baldy  dropped  to  his  knees,  shut  his 
eyes  tight,  and  babbled  incoherent  prayers.  The  big 
gross  negro  alone  was  ungrateful.  He  stared  after 
the  Rhein  with  bared  teeth  and  starting  eyeballs ;  he 
muttered  evilly  to  himself;  and  presently,  slipping  a 
hand  to  the  knife  sheath  beneath  his  belt,  he  drew 


42       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

his  weapon,  and  made  vicious  stabs  with  it  into  the 
bodies  of  imaginary  enemies. 

The  little  mate  watched  all  this  with  a  grim  smile, 
and  the  life-boat  had  run  half  a  mile  over  the  cobalt 
swells  before  he  gave  speech. 

"  I  suppose,"  said  he,  "  that  most  of  you  ducks  think 
that  glorified  Dutchman  is  smitten  with  sudden  pangs 
of  hospitality.  Don't  you  believe  it.  He's  broken 
down,  and  I  guess  the  Senegambian  here  with  the 
Sheffield  ware  is  the  only  sinner  in  the  boat,  barring 
myself,  who's  tumbled  to  it." 

"  Yes,  sar,"  said  the  black,  "  an'  I'se  gwine  to  slice 
his  liver  out." 

"  You  will  cut  just  what  parts  of  his  anatomy  I 
order,  neither  more  nor  less.  In  the  meanwhile*  put 
that  cutlery  out  of  sight.  D'you  hear  me?  That's  a 
good  nigger.  Now  all  hands,  listen.  We're  going 
to  range  up  alongside,  and  we're  going  to  board.  I 
don't  suppose  they'll  help  us  —  being  Dutchmen.  But 
thank  the  Lord  there  are  a  couple  of  boat-hooks  in  the 
boat  that  we  can  hitch  on  to  his  rail  if  he  won't  throw 
us  a  rope,  and  we  must  make  shift  to  go  hand  over 
fist  up  those.  You're  all  steamer  sailors,  and  you 
don't  know  how  to  climb ;  but  if  any  man  doesn't  learn 
enough  for  this  occasion,  he'll  have  me  to  deal  with 
afterward,  and  I  don't  recommend  the  experience. 
Once  on  board,  if  there's  any  argument,  you're  to  at- 
tend to  officers  only.  If  one  of  you  pulls  a  knife,  I'll 
throw  him  overboard.  This  scrap  is  to  be  gone 
through    English    fashion,    if   scrap   there   is   to   be. 


THE  AVATCH  ON  THE  "  RHEIN  "       43. 

There's  to  be  no  killing.  But  if  they  show  ugly,  you 
may  hammer  them  as  hard  as  you  like.  And  remem- 
ber also,  nobody's  to  tackle  the  Old  Man.  He's  my 
meat.  And  you  needn't  worry  about  deck-hands. 
Go  for  the  officers  —  if  there's  trouble  —  bowl  them 
over,  lash  them  up,  and  throw  them  into  the  chart 
house.     Savvy  all  that,  Mr.  Jenkins  ?  " 

"Yes,  sir,  and  what  afterward?" 

"  That  I'll  attend  to,  and  let  you  know  my  wishes 
in  due  time." 

The  Rhein,  with  stopped  propeller,  lay  rolling  in 
the  dark  blue  troughs,  and  the  white  life-boat,  mag- 
nificently handled,  raced  down  to  her,  close-hauled 
to  a  spanking  breeze.  Half  a  dozen  fathoms  short  of 
the  steamer's  lee,  Mr.  Kettle  smartly  rounded-to,  let 
drop  his  lug-sail  and  jib.  He  sheered  up  alongside, 
and  the  crew  fended  off  cannily  with  oar  looms,  so 
that  the  steamer  should  not  crush  them  wdth  her  down- 
^vard  roll. 

But  though  men  stood  at  the  rail  that  swooped  and 
soared  above  them,  the  hospitable  rope  of  invitation 
was  not  thrown  —  as  Mr.  Kettle  had  anticipated.  So 
he  gave  sharp  orders,  and  at  the  next  downward  roll 
two  boat-hooks  were  suddenly  upended  and  hooked 
to  her  rail;  and  gripping  these  with  their  hands,  Mr. 
Kettle  and  Jenkins  walked  up  the  Rhein's  rusty  black 
side,  and  over  the  barrier  above. 

The  Germans,  it  is  true,  had  not  invited  them;  but 
throwing  men  back  into  their  boat  to  starve  to  death, 
once  they  had  made  their  way  on  board,  was  another 


44       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

matter;  and  so,  though  the  life-boat's  crew  stepped 
inboard  over  the  rail  without  help,  they  did  it  also 
without  interference. 

Mr.  Kettle  rounded  up  his  men  with  their  backs 
against  a  deck-house.  "  Mr.  Jenkins,"  said  he,  "  I 
leave  you  in  charge.  I'm  going  topside  to  interview 
the  Old  Man  on  a  matter  of  business.  I'm  quite 
competent  to  tackle  the  crowd  on  the  bridge,  but  if 
these  ducks  down  here  feel  called  upon  to  interfere, 
I'd  be  obliged  if  you'd  keep  them  amused." 

"  Aye,  aye,  sir." 

The  little  mate  turned  and  stepped  lightly  up  the 
ladder  to  the  upper  bridge. 

The  big  square-shouldered  German  captain  met 
him.  "  You  come  on  to  my  bridge  unasked,"  he 
roared.     "  Are  these  your  English  manners  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Kettle  cheerfully,  "  and  I've  come  here 
specially  to  teach  you  more  of  them,  you  glass-eyed 
Dutchman."  On  which  he  seized  the  big  German's 
beard  in  his  iron  fist,  and  jerked  it  to  this  side  and  to 
that  till  the  unfortunate  owner  felt  that  his  head  was 
being  wrenched  adrift  from  its  moorings.  And  then, 
when  he  had  his  man  half -dazed,  and  before  the  other 
two  officers  and  the  quartermaster  on  the  bridge  had 
recovered  sufficiently  from  their  astonishment  at  the 
'sudden  attack  to  offer  assistance,  he  swung  his  victim 
round,  and  using  him  as  a  battering-ram,  drove  the 
others  before  him  till  he  had  cleared  the  bridge  and 
had  the  captain  to  himself. 

"  And  now,"  said  he,  "  we  have  room  for  a  little, 


THE  WATCH  ON  THE  "  RHEIN  "       45 

quiet,  thoughtful  talk.  What  do  you  suppose  I  was 
sitting  out  in  that  boat  for  in  the  middle  of  the  Sar- 
gasso Sea?     Good  of  my  health?" 

The  German  captain  felt  his  head  gingerly  to  make 
sure  it  was  still  in  its  socket,  and  murmured  some- 
thing about  owners  insisting  on  no  breakage  of  pas- 
sage. 

"  Quite  so.  They're  Dutch  owners  with  no  man- 
ners. You  mustn't  be  guided  by  them.  I  left  my 
steamboat  two  and  a  half  degrees  north  of  this  in  a 
state  of  some  distress.  Our  chief  has  gone  luny  and 
had  figured  short  on  coal.  So  I've  come  down  here 
to  find  enough  to  fill  the  deficiency." 

"  You  have  come  for  — ?     I  do  not  understand." 

"  Coal,"  I  said.  "  I  take  it  you've  enough  to  see 
you  to  Tampico  and  back  to  happy  sausage-land  ?  " 

"  Vera  Cruz  is  my  port.  I  carry  enough  coal  to 
steam  from  there  to  N'York.     No  more." 

"  It  will  be  plenty.  You  can  come  with  me  and 
deliver  up  enough  to  see  us  home,  and  we'll  leave  you 
the  change.  You  can  run  into  Tampico  and  re-bunker 
from  the  coal  shoots  down-river  there,  before  you 
turn  her  nose  for  Vera  Cruz  harbor  walls." 

"  But " —  the  big  German  spread  the  palms  of  ex- 
postulation — "  but  I  am  not  a  collier  ship.  I  do  not 
wish  to  sell  coal." 

"If  you  don't  sell,  it  will  be  taken  from  you.  You 
are  going  to  part  with  it,  anyway." 

*'  1  can  not  think  you  mean  this.  What  you  pro- 
pose is  piracy  on  the  high  seas,  no  less." 


46       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  Put  it  in  poetry  and  set  it  to  music,  if  you  think 
fhat  will  ease  you.  But  your  coal  my  steamboat  is 
going  to  have.  I  don't  know  that  the  point  interests 
me  very  much,  but  for  the  sake  of  formality  and  for 
entering  in  the  log,  I'd  like  to  hear  if  you'll  give  it  up 
on  reasonable  terms." 

The  German  captain  was  cowed,  maltreated,  shaken, 
but  he  found  his  backbone  here. 

"  You  may  kill  me  if  you  like,  and  I  suppose  you 
will.  But  it  shall  never  be  said  that  of  free  will  I 
betrayed  the  trust  my  owner  has  given  me.  My 
honor  is  all  that  I  have  left,  and  I  will  keep  that." 

"  Kill  you  ?  "  said  the  little  mate  contemptuously. 
"What's  your  value  as  cold  meat  to  me?  You're  no 
use  as  fuel  now,  though  I  daresay  you'll  be  used  as . 
that  in  the  sweet  by  and  by.  Coal's  what  I'm  after, 
and  the  side  issues  have  been  brought  in  by  your  lack 
of  manners." 

He  made  a  sudden  dive,  and  produced  a  revolver 
from  the  after  part  of  the  German's  clothing.  "  H'm, 
I  thought  so.  A  man  who  speaks  his  English  with  a 
Massachusetts  accent  like  yours  is  bound  to  carry  a 
gun  to  match.  And  yet,  lord !  you  hadn't  savvy 
enough  to  pull  it!  You're  an  amazing  back  number. 
Well,  I  guess  you'll  have  to  camp  out  in  your  own 
chart  house  till  I  give  further  orders.  Don't  you  dare 
to  answer  me.  And  if  you  try  any  trick  I'll  pluck 
your  beard  clean  out  by  the  roots  next  time.  Now, 
quick  march !     Vorwarts!  " 

Only  once  did  the  German  attempt  further  expos- 


THE  WATCFI  ON  THE  "  RHEIN  "       47 

tulation.  But  when  he  turned  he  looked  down  the 
black  barrel  of  his  own  revolver,  and  the  sight  cowed 
him  finally.  He  suffered  himself  to  be  hustled  into 
his  chart  house,  and  there  collapsed  on  the  settee. 

To  him  were  driven  under  varying  circumstances 
of  indignity  his  three  mates  and  chief  engineer,  and 
Jenkins,  with  another  filched  revolver,  stood  guard 
over  the  door. 

"And  now,"  said  Mr.  Kettle,  addressing  the  rest 
of  the  crew  within  reach,  "  does  any  one  dispute  that 
owing  to  the  lamentable  defection  and  incapability 
of  other  officers,  I  am  in  full  command  of  this 
junk?" 

There  was  no  answer. 

"Carried,"  said  Mr.  Kettle.  "Very  good,  then. 
I  don't  allow  my  decks  to  be  used  as  an  alamcda. 
.Watch  below,  get  below.  Mr.  Jenkins,  you're  mate. 
Get  hold  of  your  deck-hands  on  duty,  and  set  them  to 
washing  this  filthy  paint.  I  like  a  clean  ship.  You, 
quartermaster,  my  compliments  to  the  second  engi- 
neer, and  I'd  be  glad  if  he'd  come  and  report  to  me 
how  long  it  will  be  before  he  can  have  the  ship  under 
way  again." 

Some  men  are  born  to  command,  and  Mr.  Owen 
Kettle,  the  ]\Iate  of  the  Norman  Tozvcrs,  was  one  of 
them.  He  had  the  knack  of  the  words,  and  nature 
and  practice  had  given  him  the  clear,  crisp,  carrying 
voice  in  which  to  deliver  them.  Men  instinctively 
jumped  to  carry  out  orders  when  he  gave  them. 

Miss  Violet  Chesterman,  who  came  from  a  military 


48       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

stock  herself,  noticed  this  with  keen  appreciation.  So 
much  depends  on  the  timbre  of  a  voice. 

Miss  Chesterman,  it  chanced,  had  been  the  first  of 
all  on  board  the  Rhcin  to  see  the  life-boat.  She  had 
been  sitting  under  the  shade  of  an  awning  reading 
a  novel,  which  (luckily  for  Kettle)  bored  her.  She 
had  looked  up,  and  there,  on  the  edge  of  the  blue 
desert  of  sea,  spied  the  boat.  She  shaded  her  eyes, 
and  saw  men  in  it  waving  frantically.  What  woman 
would  not  have  been  thrilled  ? 

She  had  jumped  to  her  feet  and  run  to  the  bridge 
ladder  and  given  her  alarm.  Captain  Engelberg,  in 
his  most  stiff  and  pompous  manner,  had  intimated  that 
he  intended  to  conduct  the  affairs  of  his  ship  without 
the  unasked-for  assistance  of  passengers.  And  then, 
when  she  saw  that  no  attempt  was  going  to  be  made 
to  pick  up  the  life-boat,  she  had  taken  steps  to  have  the 
passage  of  the  Rhein  rudely  interrupted. 

All  this,  of  course,  Mr.  Kettle  did  not  know.  But 
his  eyes  told  him  that  the  lady  in  white  muslin  who 
came  up  from  aft,  was  extremely  good-looking,  and 
he  returned  her  greeting  with  cordiality,  and  men- 
tioned his  surprise  at  finding  an  Englishwoman  on  a 
German  tramp  cargo  boat. 

The  lady  shrugged.  "  I  had  my  reasons."  And 
then  she  laughed.  "  But  I'll  freely  own  that  I  didn't 
travel  by  the  Rhein  for  comfort.  To  be  frank  with 
you,  I've  found  both  the  ship  and  her  German  officers 
more  detestable  than  I  imagined  could  be  possible. 
I  heard  Captain  Engelberg  call  you  a  pirate  just  now." 


THE  WATCH  ON  THE  "  RHEIN  "        49 

She  laughed  again.  "  I  don't  know  if  you  are  that, 
or  what  you  are,  but  anyway,  I'm  sure  your  regime 
will  be  an  improvement." 

"  Your  comfort,  miss,  will  be  a  thing  that  I  shall 
look  after  most  narrowly.  You  give  me  word  the 
first  time  a  steward  neglects  you  or  your  room,  or 
the  cook  doesn't  dish  up  to  your  taste,  and  then  you 
stand  by  to  see  me  make  that  man  hop.  As  regards 
being  a  pirate,  there  are  extenuating  circumstances 
about  the  way  I  had  to  come  aboard  here  which  even 
a  stipendiary  magistrate  couldn't  overlook,  and  any- 
way, as  chief  officer  of  the  Norman  Towers  I  have  to 
bring  back  coal  to  my  own  captain,  let  the  opposition 
be  what  it  may.  As  regards  personal  matters,  I've 
pretty  well  squared  them  up  already,  except  that  I've 
still  got  to  attend  to  that  man  who  stood  beside  you 
near  the  poop  staff  and  mocked  at  my  boat  when 
she  was  being  left  behind.  You  must  understand, 
miss,  that  I  don't  allow  any  man  living  to  laugh  at 
me." 

"  But  I'm  not  a  man.  So  you  will  let  me  laugh, 
won't  you?  Your  mistake  is  so  funny.  If  it  wasn't 
for  the  man  you're  speaking  of  you  wouldn't  be  on 
board  here  at  all,  and  the  Rhein  would  be  some  con- 
siderable number  of  miles  farther  along  her  way." 

"  I'm  afraid  I  don't  understand." 

"  Well,  he  is  a  Scot  —  a  Mr.  McTodd,  and  he  and 
I  are  the  only  non-Germans  on  board.  I'm  afraid 
we  are  neither  of  us  popular,  but  I  gather  he  is  pretty 
actively  disliked.     You  see,  he's  in  the  stoke-hold,  and 


50       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTx\IN  KETTLE 

^(according  to  his  own  account),  he  undertook  to  teach 
the  ship's  company  boxing." 

"  H'm,"  said  Mr.  Kettle,  bristHng.  "  Fancies  him- 
self with  his  hands,  does  he?  And  the  engine-room 
officers  didn't  know  how  to  keep  discipHne?  It  was 
about  time  I  came  to  teach  them." 

"  You  might  take  into  account  the  small  item  that 
in  all  probability  he  saved  your  life,"  the  lady  sug- 
gested. "  I'm  afraid  I'm  no  engineer,  but  perhaps 
you  can  tell  me  if  there  is  a  thing  called  a  '  thrust '  ?  " 

"  Thrust  blocks,  yes,  miss." 

"  Well,  Mr.  McTodd  left  me  with  designs  that  were 
connected  with  the  thrust,  and  a  shovel  full  of  ashes, 
and  '  nutting  her  up  tight '.  Frankly,  the  technicalities 
were  quite  beyond  me,  and  very  likely  I've  reported 
them  inaccurately.  Also  there  are  moments  when 
McTodd's  best  Pollockshields  accent  is  completely  out- 
side my  grasp." 

"  Speaks  as  if  he  had  no  roof  to  his  mouth?" 

"  Precisely.  And  so  beyond  the  fact  that  his  scheme 
was  calculated  to  give  pain  to  the  engineer  stafif,  and 
to  bring  the  machinery  to  a  standstill,  I'm  afraid  I 
can't  describe  it." 

"  He  seems  to  have  delivered  the  goods  all  right," 
said  the  little  sailor  dryly.  "  And  I  shouldn't  like 
you  to  go  away  and  think  your  description  was  a  bad 
one,  miss.  But  for  a  subordinate  to  tamper  with  the 
ship's  engines  is  a  very  serious  offense  against  pro- 
fessional etiquette." 

*'  At  any  rate  you  should  be  the  last  to  complain." 


THE  WATCH  ON  THE  "  RHEIN  "        51 

"  I  trust,  miss,  that  I  shall  always  have  the  strength 
to  do  what  I  consider  right,  whether  it's  to  my  own 
advantage  or  the  reverse.  I  must  ask  you  to  excuse 
me  for  a  moment.  I  take  it  that  this  man  with  the 
black  eye  and  the  fat  lip  is  the  second  engineer  that  I 
sent  for,  and  I've  got  to  hear  his  report." 

The  Rhein's  second  engineer  had  come  on  deck  with 
no  inclination  to  recognize  the  authority  of  the  in- 
vader, and  his  introductory  sentences  were  not  those 
of  urbanity.  Mr.  Kettle  did  not  interrupt.  He 
merely  looked  at  him,  and  by  quick  degrees  civility 
oozed  into  the  man's  discourse. 

He  spoke  in  technicalities  of  a  smell  of  heated  iron, 
a  frenzied  search,  a  bearing  that  threatened  to  seize. 
Nothing  but  an  instant  stoppage  of  the  main  engines 
saved  the  Rhein  from  a  broken  shaft.  Some  male- 
factor had  done  the  thing.  Search  was  made  for  him. 
He  was  found.  A  court  (according  to  precedent)] 
was  assembled  for  his  trial,  and  evidence  was  taken 
down  at  length  in  writing. 

"  Instead  of  getting  your  old  coffee-mill  mended  up 
and  running  again." 

**  I  did  as  my  chief  ordered.  He  acted  according 
to  routine." 

"  I  see.  Dutch  routine.  Well,  Mr.  Ehrenbreit- 
stein,  what  I  want  to  know  here  and  now  is,  how  long 
is  it  going  to  take  you  to  get  under  way  again  ?  You 
may  clap  on  all  the  hands  you  need  or  can  use." 

"  I  could  not  guarantee  to  have  the  engines  turn- 
ing again  in  less  than  twenty-four  hours." 


52       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

A  voice  from  behind  interrupted.  "  Vara  true. 
Twenty- four  hours  is  short  allowance,  too,  for  the 
Dutchies.  The  job  would  take  even  me  a  good  two 
hours,  and  I'm  a  mechanic,  with  a  fine  record  in  the 
Clydebank  shops  at  my  tail." 

The  little  sailor  turned  sharply  and  looked  upward. 
The  upper  part  of  a  large  grimy  man  projected 
through  the  fiddley  gratings  above.  He  had  a  tousled 
head,  and  a  cut  over  his  left  eye  which  at  intervals 
he  mopped  with  a  handful  of  discolored  cotton-waste. 

"Are  you  McTodd?" 

"  I  was  when  I  signed  on.  But  on  account  of  sheer 
professional  abeelity  I've  been  promoted  fourth  en- 
gineer on  this  junk,  so  ye'll  kindly  clap  on  the  mister 
when  you  address  me." 

"  Then  it  was  you  that  tampered  with  the  engines  ?  " 
asked  the  little  sailor  sourly. 

"  Just  me.  It  was  a  most  unprofessional  thing  to 
do  (as  I've  no  doubt  your  tongue  is  itching  to  tell 
me),  but  I  had  ma'  reasons." 

"If  you  wish  me  to  thank  you  for  saving  my  life 
I  do  it,  here  and  now." 

"  Man,  you  may  consairve  your  breath  and  spare 
ma'  blushes.  I  take  it  ye're  just  a  sailor  man  that's 
paid  to  be  drowned,  and  not  having  at  that  time  the 
pleasure  of  your  fascinating  acquaintance,  I'm  free  to 
tell  you  I  didn't  care  the  value  of  a  bawbee  whether 
ye  sank  or  swam.  When  I  tampered  with  yon  thrust, 
I  did  it  to  oblige  the  leddy.  She  seemed  anxious  to 
give  you  the  chance  of  treading  a  dry  deck." 


THE  WATCH  ON  THE  "  RHEIN  "        53 

Miss-  Chesterman  was  quick  to  see  the  antagonism 
that  had  sprouted  up  between  the  two,  and  made  skil- 
ful intervention.  '*  I  was  going  to  ask  if  Captain 
Kettle  would  come  and  have  a  cup  of  tea  with  me, 
as  I  know  Mr.  McTodd  wishes  to  get  on  with  his 
repairs." 

The  little  sailor's  red  face  deepened  in  hue,  till  it 
became  almost  purple.  Like  most  mates,  he  had  held 
a  master's  certificate  for  long  enough,  but  this  was  the 
first  time  any  one  had  given  him  the  title. 

Mr.  LIcTodd  from  above  winked  a  shrewd  eye. 
"  Miss,"  said  he,  *'  you've  diplomacy,  and  the  next 
time  you  find  yourself  in  a  vice-consul's  office,  you 
may  tell  them  I  said  so.  It's  a  fine  gift.  But  deal 
gently  with  the  young  man.  Well,  Til  go  below  to 
pour  oil  into  the  wounds  of  yon  thrust.  I  wish  I'd 
the  wine  which  we're  told  the  guid  Samaritan  also 
carried  in  his  first-aid  kit.  It's  vara  exhausting  to 
work  in  the  heat  of  this  engine-room  without  lubri- 
cant. And  the  mess  room's  dry.  I  hadn't  been  pro- 
moted there  three  days  from  the  fireman's  fo'castle 
when  supplies  ran  oot." 

"If  you  will  let  me,  I  will  send  the  cabin  steward 
down  with  a  tray." 

"  Say  no  more,  m'em.     I'll  treasure  your  memory." 

Miss  Chesterman's  cup  of  tea  developed  itself  into 
a  tidy  meal,  and  Kettle  faced  it  wdth  the  appetite  that 
is  only  grown  after  starvation  in  an  open  boat.  A 
table  was  brought  out  on  deck,  and  an  abject  stew^ard 
waited  on  him  with  twittering  knees. 


CHAPTER  y 

THE   DUTCHMAN    PAYS 

THE  Rhcin  ran  briskly  alongside  the  Norman 
Towers,  turned  her  engines  to  full  speed  astern, 
and  came  to  a  dead  stop  some  twenty  fathoms  away. 
It  was  very  smartly  done. 

Mr.  O.  Kettle,  from  the  upper  bridge  of  the  Rhein, 
looked  across  at  his  own  ship  and  frowned.  Her 
side  was  rust-streaked  and  shabby;  her  bottom,  when 
she  heaved  up  to  the  long  blue  swell  of  the  Sargasso 
Sea,  showed  a  grass-green  garden  of  weed;  her  rig- 
ging and  funnel  stays  were  ill  set  up;  and  her  decks 
were  cluttered  with  untidy  litter.  A  derrick  boom 
which  had  jumped  out  of  its  chock  traversed  about 
the  fore-deck  as  she  rolled,  and  scored  a  bright  arc 
on  the  iron  plating  between  bulwark  and  hatch. 

From  the  fore  shrouds  there  blew  out  the  remain- 
ing third  of  a  wind-ragged  Union  Jack  which  had 
been  seized  there,  Union  down,  as  a  permanent  sign 
of  calamity.  Even  the  falls  of  the  port  life-boat  had 
not  been  touched  since  Mr.  Kettle  unhooked  from 
them,  and  the  blocks,  with  a  catch  of  orange-yellow 
Gulf  weed  streaming  from  them,  soused  in  the  water 
or  bumped  against  the  plating  as  the  steamer  rolled. 

Mr.  Kettle  summed  up  the  situation.     "  Old  Man 

54 


THE  DUTCHMAN  PAYS  55 

standing  by  the  whisky  bottle.  Others  too  slack  to 
carry  on  without  orders." 

He  glanced  round  rather  nervously  at  Miss  Chester- 
man  who  (by  special  invitation)  was  on  the  upper 
bridge  at  his  side.  He  obviously  expected  comment, 
and  with  the  nervousness  of  a  man  who  sees  the  in- 
felicities of  his  own  fireside  exposed  to  a  stranger, 
dreaded  it. 

She  skirted  the  subject  tactfully.  "  How  delighted 
your  friends  will  be  to  see  you  back." 

"  Bringing  coal  ?  " 

"  If  you  like  to  put  it  that  way.  But  come  to  think 
of  it,  isn't  it  natural  one  should  always  admire  suc- 
cess? You  set  out  on  a  forlorn  hope  and  you've  suc- 
ceeded.    What  could  be  more  satisfactory?" 

Miss  Chesterman  was  tall  and  generously  propor- 
tioned. She  was  all  that  one  means  by  the  description 
"  a  fine  handsome  woman  ",  and  like  many  girls  of  her 
build,  she  was  frankly  and  openly  attracted  by  a  man 
half  a  head  shorter  than  herself.  In  fact,  during  the 
four  days  in  which  the  Rhein  hunted  for  the  disabled 
Norman  Towers  she  had  w'orked  up  between  herself 
and  the  little  sailor  something  that  might  be  described 
as  a  hot  flirtation. 

But  at  this  moment  on  the  upper  bridge  of  his  cap- 
tured steamboat,  Mr.  Kettle  was  a  ship's  officer  and 
nothing  beyond.  In  reply  to  the  whistle-hoot  a  dozen 
apathetic  figures  appeared  on  the  Norman  Towers' 
untidy  decks,  but  there  was  no  Captain  Farnish,  and 
no  trace  of  organized  discipline,  and   for  a  moment 


% 


56       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

Mr.  Kettle  gritted  his  teeth  in  a  spasm  of  rage  at  the 
spectacle. 

"  Miss,"  he  said,  turning  to  the  lady,  "  what  you 
see  there  is  entirely  my  fault.  Captain  Farnish  suf- 
fers from  malaria,  and  I  guess  he's  down  with  a  bad 
attack.  He  deliberately  signed  on  inferior  mates  and 
engineers,  as  he  did  me  the  honor  to  intrust  the  dis- 
cipline of  the  boat  to  his  chief  officer,  and  that's  me. 
When  my  back's  turned,  you  see  what  happens. 
When  I  get  back  on  board  there,  you'll  see  discipline 
come  back  like  a  conjuring  trick." 

He  hailed  across,  addressing  the  second  and  third 
mates  by  name,  and  demanding  a  boat,  but  none  was 
forthcoming.  Apathy  had  bitten  into  that  crew  too 
deeply,  and  finally  it  was  in  the  Rhein's  quarter-boat, 
rowed  by  the  negro  and  the  German,  and  escorted  by 
a  shoal  of  excited  flying-fish  that  he  passed  across  to 
his  own  ship. 

By  way  of  emphasizing  his  home-coming  he 
knocked  down  the  first  three  men  who  stood  in  his 
path,  and  then  marched  briskly  into  the  chart  house. 
Captain  Farnish,  with  the  usual  tear  in  his  eye,  sat 
huddled  in  his  red  velvet  chair,  and  Mr.  Kettle  noted 
with  fresh  distaste  that  the  caster  of  the  lame  leg  was 
still  absent. 

"  Come  back  on  board,  sir.  I've  brought  that 
coal." 

"Very  pleased  to  see  you,  Mr.  Kettle,  me  man. 
But  I  don't  think  coal  interests  me  now.  My  pro- 
fessional  reputation's  eternally  punctured;  'n  all  on 


THE  DUTCHMAN  PAYS  57 

account  of  that  psalm-singing  Mr.  Little.  Never 
you  take  up  psalm-singing,  Mr.  Kettle,  me  man,  or  if 
you  do,  take  dam'  good  care  to  pick  out  the  right 
psalms." 

"  I'll  remember  that,  sir.  But  I'd  like  to  point  out 
that  whatever  else  the  owners  may  be,  at  any  rate 
they're  business  men.  It  isn't  as  if  the  old  Tozvers 
was  fully  insured.  They  stand  to  lose  twenty-five 
per  cent,  if  she's  a  total  loss,  and  to  pay  according  on 
salvage.     Now  you've  saved  them  that." 

Captain  Farnish  shook  a  blowsy  head. 

"  Think  that  Dutch  boat  won't  put  in  a  big  claim 
for  salvage?  " 

"  She  might,"  said  the  chief  officer  dryly,  "  if  any- 
body aboard  her  knew  our  name.  But  you  see,  I've 
every  soul  of  her  people  under  hatches,  and  there,  if 
you'll  give  me  my  way,  sir,  they'll  stay  till  we've  got 
the  coal  we  want  and  are  away  out  of  sight." 

"  But  your  own  boat's  crew  —  won't  they  tell  the 
Dutch  skipper  if  he  asks?  " 

"  Well,  there  are  two  reasons  against  that,  sir. 
First,  the  Rhein  didn't  treat  us  very  civilly,  and  my 
men  were  mad  enough  to  eat  her,  funnel  and  all,  by 
the  time  we  did  get  on  board.  And,  secondly,  I  had 
the  handling  of  these  men  for  a  considerable  number 
of  days  in  our  life-boat,  sir,  and  I  can  guarantee  that 
—  with  me  in  command  of  them  —  they're  the  best 
disciplined  handful  of  toughs  in  the  Western  Ocean 
to-day." 

"  I  can  believe  it.     You  have  a  knack  with  vou  in 


58       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

handling  a  crew,  Mr.  Kettle,  me  man.  Must  Have 
got  it  from  me,  I  suppose.  My  whiskers!  but  I  was 
a  fine  bucko  mate  in  my  day  before  I  got  command, 
and  had  to  take  so  many  precautions  against  malaria. 
But  it  would  have  to  come  out  sooner  or  later  who 
we  are.  We  can't  take  the  Dutchman's  coal  without 
paying  for  it.     That's  blame'  near  piracy." 

"  Beg  your  pardon,  sir,  but  I  wasn't  proposing  any- 
thing of  the  sort.  You've  money  in  that  drawer  next 
to  the  chronometer,  in  hard  cash.  I  suppose  there'^ 
some  one  among  those  incompetents  down  in  the  en- 
gine-room who  can  figure  out  how  many  tons  it  will 
take  to  steam  us  home,  and  we  will  pay  the  Rhein 
at  Newport  rates  plus  five  shillings  a  ton  added  for; 
the  emergency  call.  You  can  take  it  from  me,  sir, 
the  subject  will  then  drop.  That  Dutch  skipper  (al- 
though I  can  not  like  his  eye-glasses  or  the  cut  of  his 
beard)  is  a  man  with  a  pride  of  his  own,  and  you'll 
never  find  him  going  to  a  consulate  and  squalling 
that  his  whole  ship  has  been  held  up  by  a  boatload  of 
starving  scarecrows  that  he  tried  to  desert  in  mid- 
ocean.  No,  sir,  there's  human  nature  even  among 
Dutchmen,  and  the  man'll  hold  his  tongue." 

"  Splendid  thing,  human  nature,"  Captain  FarnisK 
assented,  "  though  I  still  feel  my  position  is  precarious. 
I  mean,  very  risky  thing  to  depend  on  glass-eyed 
Dutchmen  possessing  human  nature.  Eh,  well,  as 
you've  come  back,  Owen,  me  man,  I  can  hand  over 
charge  to  you  with  full,  I  may  say  fullest,  confidence. 
Strain  of  your  absence  has  been  so  very  great,  I  really; 


THE  DUTCHMAN  PAYS  59 

must  indulge  in  half  an  hour's  sleep."  And  murmur- 
ing, "  Never  get  married,  Mr.  Kettle,  me  man. 
Strain  of  keeping  subsequent  family  out  of  work- 
house most  exhausting,"  Captain  Farnish  broke  off 
into  a  most  enjoyable  snore. 

The  little  mate  frowned.  He  took  a  book  from 
the  shelf  above  the  wash-stand  and  fitted  it  under  the 
casterless  leg  of  the  red  velvet  chair  when  it  lurched 
upward  to  the  roll  of  the  ship,  and  then  pressed  on 
the  bell-push  till  the  captain's  steward  came. 

"  My  man,"  said  the  mate,  "  I've  come  back  on 
board  this  packet,  and  don't  you  forget  it.  Next  time 
you  fail  to  answer  a  bell  promptly  I'll  give  you  a  dose 
of  smartening  powder  that  will  take  a  week  to  digest. 
Now  turn-to  and  clean  out  that  big  starboard  state- 
room below,  and  make  up  a  bed  in  the  lower  bunk. 
If  I  find  a  speck  of  dirt  when  I  come  to  inspect,  I'll 
make  you  wash  the  whole  place  out  with  your  tongue. 
It  is  probable  that  a  lady  passenger  will  travel  in  that 
room,  and  if  I  hear  so  much  as  a  word  of  complaint 
from  her,  I'll  attend  to  you  in  a  way  that'll  make  you 
hate  the  sea  for  the  remainder  of  your  natural  life." 

Mr.  Kettle  went  out  on  deck  then,  sent  certain 
messages,  and  presently  was  holding  a  meeting  of  the 
second  and  third  mates  and  the  second  and  third  en- 
gineers in  the  saloon  below.  Proceedings  were  en- 
tirely private,  and  no  report  of  them  ofiicial  or 
unofficial  was  ever  issued,  which  goes  to  show  that 
whatever  differences  officers  of  the  mercantile  marine 
may  have  among  themselves,  it  is  a  point  of  strictest 


6o       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

etiquette  with  them  to  keep  these  away  from  out- 
siders. 

It  was,  however,  matter  of  common  note  that  after 
the  meeting  broke  up,  the  second  mate  (who  hated 
responsibihty)  had  a  puffed  and  darkened  left  eye 
which  showed  signs  of  rapidly  closing;  that  the  third's 
collar  was  burst  at  both  ends ;  and  that  both  the  second 
and  third  engineers,  young  men  who  were  always 
sallow,  were  both  so  white  as  to  suggest  that  anger 
and  insult  burned  hotly  within  them.  But  the  next 
thing  noticeable  about  the  quartette  was  their  brisk- 
ness. They  had  gone  into  that  meeting  limp  and  dis- 
pirited. They  emerged  angry  but  energetic.  And, 
incidentally,  the  record  also  tells  that  Mr.  Kettle  had 
contrived  to  break  both  sets  of  his  own  knuckles. 

Affairs  marched  rapidly  from  now  onward.  The 
infection  of  briskness  spread.  The  lethargic  crew 
woke  up  —  or  were  rudely  awakened.  A  boatload  of 
them  went  across  to  the  Rhcin,  and  to  their  surprise 
found  themselves  under  the  crisp  command  of  a 
truculent  officer  in  whom  they  recognized  one  Jenkins, 
ex-incompetent  deck-hand  of  the  Norman  Tozvers. 

But  Mr.  Jenkins  soon  proved  himself  an  officer  of 
affairs.  He  yapped  out  orders  with  the  true  bucko 
mate's  bark.  Derricks  were  lifted  and  winches  rigged 
to  raise  the  coal  from  below,  bags  were  found  to  carry 
it  in ;  tarpaulins  were  stripped  and  hatches  removed ; 
and  lo!  at  the  bottom  of  the  hold,  among  the  coal, 
there  stood  ready  the  Scots  engineer  McTodd  facing 
(after. the  manner  of  a  drill  sergeant),  a  squad  of 


THE  DUTCHMAN  PAYS  6i 

German    firemen    and    trimmers    who    carried    their 
shovels  before  them  stiffly  at  the  salute. 

**  Yap  —  yap  —  yap,"  barked  Jenkins,  and  the  work 
was  carried  out  at  the  run.  A  towing  hawser  was 
passed,  and  the  Rhcin  steamed  ahead  to  keep  it  taut. 
Then  with  the  distance  constant  between  the  two  ves- 
sels, a  Temporley  transporter  was  rigged.  A  wire 
was  stretched  from  the  Rhein's  maintop  to  the  Nor- 
man  Towers'  foretop,  and  on  this  traveled  the  usual 
mechanism  of  sheaves  and  blocks.  Mr.  Jenkins  stood 
beside  the  Rhein's  poop  staff  and  threw  up  a  hand  to 
signify  that  all  was  ready  at  his  end.  Mr.  Kettle,  on 
the  forecastle  head  of  the  Norman  Towers,  gave  a 
similar  arm  signal  for  "  Go  ahead." 

Coal  from  below  was  loaded  into  bags,  whipped  on 
deck,  slung  aloft,  and  sent  dancing  out  above  the  dip- 
ping towing  hawser.  The  bags  were  dumped  on  the 
Norman  Tozver/  fore-deck,  and  their  contents  were 
emptied  into  the  hungry  bunkers.  The  steamers 
rolled  crisscross  to  the  swells  in  a  halo  of  coal  dust, 
and  work  was  pushed  forward  at  a  pace  that  nearly 
satisfied  even  that  master  of  the  art  of  driving,  Mr. 
Owen  Kettle. 

All  helped  except  Captain  Farnish,  who  attended  to 
his  malaria;  the  Rhein's  officers  and  crew,  who  were 
battened  down  in  the  Rhein's  number  one  hold,  and 
raged  together  there  furiously;  and  Miss  Violet  Ches- 
terman,  who  sat  in  the  captain's  own  Madeira  chair 
on  the  Rhein's  upper  bridge  and  watched  proceedings 
with  absorbed  interest. 


62       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

Miss  Violet  Chesterman  was  a  young  lady  of  some 
considerable  experience  of  life.  Her  years  numbered 
only  twenty-three  but  she  had  lived  every  minute  of 
them.  She  had  gone  through  seasons  in  London,  New 
York,  and  Paris;  she  had  lived  in  a  Swiss  mountain 
hotel  in  winter,  and  in  a  salmon  fisher's  log-house  in 
Norway ;  she  had  yachted,  bicycled,  danced,  golfed ; 
she  knew  the  delights  of  winter  cock-shooting  in  the 
West  of  Ireland,  and  the  gorgeous  boredom  of  court 
functions  in  London.  She  had  money  and  a  fasci- 
nating manner,  and  knew  the  thrills  of  many  proposals; 
and,  a  month  before  the  date  on  which  this  chronicle 
opens,  found  herself  formally  engaged  to  be  married. 

I  will  not  give  away  the  adventurous  man's  name, 
as  he  is  husband  now  of  a  far  more  suitable  young 
woman,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  disturb  them.  But  I 
may  say  that  he  was  a  peer  who  played  a  good  game 
of  polo,  owned  three  very  fine  houses,  and  had  fore- 
seen English  predatory  legislation  so  cleverly  that  he 
had  practically  all  his  capital  invested  beyond  the 
reach  of  socialistic  theft.  Personally,  I  have  always 
found  him  amusing,  and  so  presumably  did  Miss 
Chesterman  till  she  became  engaged  to  him.  But 
after  that  they  apparently  bored  one  another  to  the 
verge  of  tears.  He,  being  a  gentleman,  played  the 
engaged  man's  game  down  to  the  last  comma ;  but 
she,  towards  tire  end  of  that  month,  became  acutely 
miserable. 

An  uncle  saved  the  situation.  He  was  fishing  for 
tarpon   and  catching  sharks  in  the  Panuco  River  at 


THE  DUTCHMAN  PAYS  6^ 

Tampico,  and  he  wrote  her  a  half-joking  invitation  to 
come  out  and  amuse  her  aunt.  She  cabled  a  frantic 
"  Yes,"  rushed  down  to  Southampton  just  in  time  to 
see  the  North  German  Lloyd  boat  put  to  sea,  and 
within  an  hour  had  engaged  a  passage  on  the  German 
tramp  s.s.  Rhein,  then  on  the  point  of  departure  for 
Gulf  ports  with  coal  and  general  cargo. 

From  the  safe  harborage  of  the  Rhein's  stuffy 
saloon  in  Southampton  Water,  she  wrote  the  friend- 
liest possible  letter  breaking  off  her  engagement,  and 
when  this  had  been  sent  ashore  by  the  pilot,  set  her- 
self to  study  the  manners  and  customs  of  that  un- 
known animal,  the  German  merchant  seaman. 

For  a  week  ]\Iiss  Chesterman  found  her  new  as- 
sociates interesting.  She  marveled  three  times  daily 
at  the  amount  of  knife-blade  they  could  swallow  at 
meals  without  cutting  themselves;  their  martial  bear- 
ing, their  bows,  and  their  taste  for  sentiment  were 
all  frankly  amusing;  but  at  the  end  of  that  week  these 
things  grew  stale,  and  a  general  feeling  of  fastidious 
disgust  filled  her  to  the  brim.  (Those  unfortunates 
who  have  met  the  German  mariner  at  home  on  the 
high  seas  will  be  able  to  supply  the  details.) 

There  are  moments  when  she  thought  she  might 
have  done  worse  than  close  with  the  offer  so  recently 
rejected.  And  she  was  in  this  frame  of  mind  when 
she  encountered  Romance  in  the  largest  of  capitals 
and  (as  she  believed)  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  in 
the  person  of  Air.  Owen  Kettle. 

You  are  to  imagine  her  leaning  over  the  poop  rail 


64      MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

of  the  Rhein,  and  watching  the  battered  hfe-boat,  that 
she  herself  had  sighted,  being  callously  left  astern  to 
perish  in  the  desert  of  the  sea.  Any  man  or  womar 
living,  it  would  seem,  would  have  been  thrilled  by  the 
sight  of  that  little  ship's  officer  sitting  there  undaunted 
among  his  lean  scarecrow  crew  with  nothing  else  in 
sight  but  blue  sky,  blue  Sargasso  Sea,  and  orange- 
yellow  weed. 

It  had  been  a  shock  to  her  to  find  that  the  engineer 
took  the  whole  as  a  matter  of  ordinary  German 
routine.  "  German  ship-owners  were  in  business  to 
make  dividends,  not  to  waste  time  over  saving  the 
lives  of  competitors,"  was  the  view  that  Mr.  McTodd 
took.  And  then  she  had  turned  her  eloquence  on  the 
Scot,  and  had  seen  that  acid  Northerner  thaw  out  and 
deliberately  risk  the  safety  of  the  ship  to  do  her  pleas- 
ure. 

Romance!  She  drew  deep  breaths  as  she  thought 
of  it.  These  were  deeper  waters  than  those  she  had 
known  before,  and  as  for  the  men  that  trafficked  in 
them  —  well,  at  any  rate  they  were  men. 

And  then  she  had  seen  this  Mr.  Kettle,  with  noth- 
ing much  else  besides  his  bare  hands  and  his  person- 
ality, take  possession  of  a  big,  well-found,  strongly- 
manned  steamer,  and  carry  her  off  to  do  his  pleasure 
in  the  teeth  of  all  opposition.  The  man  was  some- 
thing quite  new  to  her,  something  full  to  the  brim 
with  primeval  vigor.  No  wonder  she  fell  in  love  with 
him.     .     .     . 


THE  DUTCHMAN  PAYS  65 

The  coaling  went  on  with  noise,  and  dust,  and 
orderly  speed.  The  steamers  rolled  crisscross,  but 
the  Rheins  engines  kept  the  lines  taut  and  the  bunches 
of  coal  bags  went  hopping  merrily  across  from  lower 
masthead  to  lower  masthead  to  the  boundless  amaze- 
ment of  the  flying-fish.  It  is  a  nice  operation,  this 
coaling  at  sea,  and  none  of  the  crew  of  the  Norman 
Tozvers  had  ever  witnessed  it  before.  They  were  in- 
terested at  first,  and  heartily  sick  of  it  before  it  was 
finished,  but  it  was  astonishing  to  note  that  no  one 
complained  of  tiredness. 

When  Mr.  Kettle  returned  on  board  they  were  one 
and  all  sunk  in  a  slough  of  lethargy,  and  the  process 
of  waking  up  under  his  hard  driving  was  painful  to 
many  of  them.  But  the  small  mate  was  perfectly 
callous  to  their  inclinations  toward  laziness,  and  even 
that  chartered  idler,  the  carpenter,  was  seen  to  carry 
out  an  order  on  the  run  when  Mr.  Kettle's  trim  shoe 
toe  threatened  him  from  the  rear. 

But  at  last  the  hungry  bunkers  were  stored  with 
sufficient  fuel  to  steam  the  Norman  Tozvers  back  to 
Liverpool,  and  crisp  orders  were  given  to  knock  off, 
and  unrig  the  transporter. 

In  the  meanwhile  fires  had  been  lighted  under  the 
cold  boilers,  and  smoke  trickled  from  the  rusty  stack. 
The  escort  of  sea-gulls  recognized  the  omens  and  rose 
mewing  from  the  water,  ready  to  fly  on  with  labored 
wing  to  that  spot  in  mid-ocean  where  the  gulls  from 
the  Azores  would  take  over  the  watch.     The  Norman 


66       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

Towers'  boat  returned  from  the  Rhein,  bringing  her 
people,  bringing  also,  as  Mr.  Kettle  noted  with  a 
queer  thrill,  Miss  Violet  Chesterman. 

Tentatively  he  had  offered  the  lady  an  alternative 
to  the  discomforts  of  the  German  boat,  and  (as  we 
have  seen),  had  ordered  a  state-room  for  her  in  case 
she  came.  But  it  was  not  till  she  had  seen  him  bring 
back  energy  and  discipline  to  his  old  crew  that  she 
made  up  her  mind  to  take  the  step  which  (as  she  was 
well  aware),  would  probably  cut  her  off  from  her 
own  caste  for  the  remainder  of  her  life. 

The  German  officers  and  crew  still  remained  bat- 
tened down  in  their  own  Number  One  hold,  and  the 
sole  remaining  occupant  of  the  Rhein's  outer  decks 
was  the  Scots  engineer.  Him,  Mr.  Kettle,  the  Mate, 
hailed. 

"  You  there,  Mr.  McTodd  ?  Won't  you  come  back 
in  our  boat?  Captain  Farnish  would  be  very  pleased 
to  give  you  a  passage  back  to  Liverpool." 

"  I  thank  ye.     But  I'll  stay  where  I've  signed  on." 

"  But,  man,  they'll  eat  you  when  you  let  them  out 
of  that  hold." 

"  Man,"  bawled  the  Scot,  wagging  a  discolored  fore- 
finger across  the  dark  blue  swells,  "  yon's  a  very  hu- 
morous observe.  It's  just  for  the  fun  of  seeing  them 
try  that  I'm  staying  on.  If  ever  you're  down  at 
Clydebank  two  months  hence,  ask  for  me  there  and 
you'll  hear  news  of  how  these  Dutchmen  fancied  their 
meal." 


THE  DUTCHMAN  PAYS  67 

Miss  Violet  Chesterman  drew  a  deep  breath  as  she 
listened.  This  manner  of  men  was  new  to  her  ex- 
perience. They  might  be  many  things,  but  at  any  rate 
she  decided  they  were  men. 


CHAPTER  VI 

LEADS   UP   TO    MISS   DUBBS 

/CAPTAIN  FARNISH'S  appearance  at  sea  has 
^^  already  been  lightly  described  by  the  word 
*'blowsy."  Once  out  of  soundings,  he  lived  a  life  of 
slippered,  unbuttoned,  unshaven  ease,  complicated 
with  (as^has  been  hinted  frequently),  systematic  at- 
tempts to  keep  away  symptoms  of  malaria.  But,  once 
he  had  given  orders  to  fly  for  a  pilot,  he  bathed,  he 
did  mighty  surgical  deeds  with  a  razor,  and  his 
steward  was  hugely  busy  over  brushing  the  mold  from 
boots  and  wearing-apparel. 

There  was  nothing  of  the  popular  idea  of  the 
mariner  in  Captain  Farnish's  shore  rig.  He  wore  a 
black  tail-coat  and  austere  trousers ;  his  waistcoat  was 
cut  low  (as  if  to  show  the  edges  of  his  economical 
shirt-front),  and  displayed  a  fine  gold  stud  and  a  pious 
black  bow  tie;  and  after  he  had  taken  his  false  teeth 
from  the  drawer  in  the  chart  table  where  they  traveled 
when  at  sea,  and  clicked  them  in  between  his  lips,  he 
would  have  passed  comfortably  for  a  well-to-do  grocer 
with  strong  Nonconformist  tendencies. 

He  practised  a  smile  or  two  at  himself  in  the  look- 
ing-glass to  make  sure  his  teeth  were  working  cor- 
rectly,  shipped   the   square-topped  bowler  hat  which 

68 


LEADS  UP  TO  MISS  DUBBS  69 

the  steward  reverently  handed  him,  and  went  out  on 
deck. 

"  Mr.  Kettle,  me  man." 

"Sir?" 

"Good  old  smell,  the  Liverpool  River,  isn't  it? 
Not  an  ounce  of  fever  in  a  mile  of  it.  Er  —  if  you 
want  to  slip  ashore  before  we  dock,  that'll  be  all 
right." 

"  I  trust  you'll  allow  me  to  take  the  fore-deck  as 
usual,  sir." 

"If  you  choose  to  remain  on  board,"  said  Captain 
Farnish  dryly,  "  I  should  say  a  boatswain's  chair  in 
a  ventilator  would  be  the  healthiest  spot  for  you.  Just 
remember,  me  man,  that  that  blame'  Dutchman  has 
had  a  week  ashore  at  Tampico  by  this,  and  if  he 
hasn't  been  making  the  cables  hum,  I'll  swallow  my 
ivories.  It  isn't  as  if  we  were  in  New  York,  where 
they  always  back  their  own  side.  You're  in  good  old 
England  now,  Owen,  me  man,  where,  when  a  case 
comes  on  in  the  courts,  the  stipendiary  and  the  papers 
always  say  the  Englishman's  wrong." 

"  You  think  it'll  be  a  case  of  the  police,  sir?  " 

"  I'm  pretty  sure  of  it." 

"Ah!"  said  Mr.  Kettle,  the  Mate,  thoughtfully. 

"  Yes,  I  quite  see  what  you're  considering.  Your 
idea  is  that  you've  done  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of, 
and  that  when  the  police  come  you'll  put  up  a  fight 
that  half  Liverpool  would  pay  sixpence  a  head  to 
come  and  stare  at.  Well,  in  ordinary  circumstances 
I'd  be  the  last  man  to  try  and  head  you  off  —  you 


70      MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

having  right  on  your  side,  as  we're  agreed.  But  I 
want  you  to  remember  that  you've  got  somebody  else 
to  consider  now,  and  that's  this  Miss  Chesterman 
you've  been  sparking  so  hard.  I'll  own  up  at  once 
she's  not  my  clip,  but  then  I  know  quite  well  I'm  the 
old  style  of  shellback  and  you're  the  new.  You  like 
to  sport  a  brass-edged  uniform  whether  you're  on 
shore  or  sea,  and  dam'  well  you  look  in  it,  me  man. 
That  ginger-colored  torpedo  beard  sets  you  off  well, 
too  —  makes  you  look  a  kind  of  breezy  fellow  that'd 
go  anywhere  to  find  a  bit  of  trouble.  And  I  don't 
see  why  you  shouldn't  marry  the  girl  either.  She 
should  have  money,  by  her  accent;  and,  if  you've 
sense,  you'll  cut  the  sea,  and  find  an  occupation  ashore. 
If  I  were  you,  I'd  go  into  the  corn  business.  There's 
said  to  be  money  in  it,  and  it's  certainly  genteel,  if 
only  you're  in  it  in  a  big  enough  way." 

"  If  ever  I  marry,  I  do  not  leave  the  sea.  There'll 
be  no  question  about  that." 

*'  You're  young,  and  you've  none  depending  on  you. 
Wait  till  the  kiddies  begin  to  arrive,  and  then  you'll 
wish  you'd  a  nice  quiet  hen  farm  and  a  balance  in  the 
savings-bank." 

Now  Mr.  Kettle,  the  Mate,  had  himself  thought 
this  matter  out  very  thoroughly  already.  Like  most 
officers  of  the  mercantile  marine,  he  was  quite  ready 
to  stand  up  to  all  that  came  from  either  man  or  the 
elements  on  the  face  of  the  waters,  but  he  had  an  in-' 
stinctive  dread  and  distrust  for  English  law  ashore. 

The  law  (according  to  his  view),  was  always  on  the 


LEADS  UP  TO  MISS  DUBBS  71 

side  of  the  owner  or  the  crew,  and  any  officer  who  was 
dragged  into  court  was  disbeheved  and  insulted,  and 
emerged  from  the  ordeal  with  his  certificate  sus- 
pended or  indorsed,  and  his  future  professional  pros- 
pects eternally  blasted. 

Of  course,  too,  if  Captain  Farnish  appeared  before 
a  stipendiary  magistrate  or  a  Board  of  Trade  inquiry, 
that  disgusting  mode  of  torture  known  as  a  cross-ex- 
amination would  inevitably  bring  to  light  items  of  his 
past  history  —  connected  with  avoidance  of  malaria, 
for  instance  —  and  cause  him  to  lose  his  present  billet, 
and  inevitably  debar  him  from  ever  getting  another. 
There  is  small  demand  these  days  for  elderly  ship- 
masters—  none  at  all  if  they  are  known  to  have  their 
failings. 

Whether  the  German  complained  or  not,  the  Nor- 
man Towers  was  long  overdue,  and  underwriters 
would  most  certainly  press  for  an  inquiry  even  if 
owners  were  inclined  to  hush  matters  up.  Some- 
body would  have  to  be  sacrificed. 

If  Little,  the  chief  engineer,  had  only  been  kind 
enough  to  die  on  the  passage  home,  blame  might  very 
well  have  been  piled  on  his  absent  shoulders.  But 
Mr.  Little  had  recovered.  He  had  not  only  sloughed 
off  his  madness,  but  had  turned  very  shrewd  and  sane, 
and  (somewhat  naturally),  was  prepared  to  fight  tooth 
and  nail  for  the  retention  of  his  own  chief's  certificate. 

"  Say  a  word  against  me,"  said  Mr,  Little,  "  and 
I'll  swear  an  affidavit  I  told  the  Old  Man  in  Vera  Cruz 
we'd  only  coal  enough  to  carry  us  to  mid-ocean,  and 


^2       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

he  was  too  blind  to  care.  Yes,  and  I  can  bring  wit- 
nesses to  prove  it.  You  can  bet  the  hands  hate  the 
mate  enough  to  swear  to  anything  he  disHkes,  after 
the  way  he's  driven  them." 

Mr.  Kettle  recognized  the  soundness  of  the  argu- 
ment. There  remained  then  the  alternative  of  pro- 
fessional ruin  for  either  Captain  Farnish  or  himself, 
and  what  his  superior  officer  expected  of  him  was 
clear  enough. 

".  .  .  If  you  want  to  slip  ashore  before  we  dock, 
that'll  be  all  right.     .     .    ." 

It  was  frankly  selfish,  of  course,  but  then,  after  all, 
self-preservation  is  the  first  law  of  mercantile  marine 
ofBcers  (as  it  is  of  nature),  especially  if  the  officers 
are  married  and  have  families  and  no  means.  As  a 
clenching  argument,  Mrs.  Farnish's  last  words  to  Mr. 
Kettle  as  he  left  the  home  where  he  had  been  brought 
up,  leaped  back  to  his  memory : 

"  Owen,  boy,  you'll  look  after  my  old  man." 

Of  course,  there  was  Miss  Chesterman.  Once 
professional  ruin  overtook  him,  he  was  quite  of  opin- 
ion that  his  little  romance  with  her  would  come  to  an 
undignified  end.  She  was  certainly  very  much  in 
love  with  him  at  that  period,  and  though  he  tried  to 
persuade  himself  that  he  was  in  love  with  her,  I  do  not 
think  that  his  feeling  ever  amounted  to  that.  He  was 
a  good  deal  dazzled  by  her  charm,  and  he  was  cer- 
tainly flattered  by  her  preference,  and  (in  his  turn) 
imagined  that  she  was  attracted  by  his  rapid  rise  in 
his  own  profession,  and  the  prospect  that  he  would. 


LEADS  UP  TO  MISS  DUBBS  'ji 

with  luck,  be  presently  standing  on  the  upper  bridge  of 
a  steamer  as  full-fledged  shipmaster.  Mr,  Kettle,  the 
Mate,  had  a  full  idea  of  the  importance  of  the  Captain 
Kettle  that  was  to  be  in  the  future. 

So,  if  he  made  himself  scapegoat,  it  must  be  an 
understood  thing  that  all  his  pretensions  to  the  hand 
of  Miss  Violet  Chesterman  must  vanish  at  once.  And 
all  (his  demon  suggested  to  him)  for  the  sake  of  an 
injunction  laid  on  him  by  that  uninteresting  old 
woman,  Mrs.  Saturday  Farnish.  Mr.  Kettle  laughed 
grimly  to  himself:  "The  old  dear  has  it  easily,  of 
course." 

Thereafter  he  made  rapid  preparations.  His 
clothes,  and  the  poor  contents  of  his  room,  he  packed 
into  a  tin  trunk  and  an  antique  portmanteau,  and  ad- 
dressed care  of  Mrs.  S.  Farnish  at  an  unfashionable 
terrace  in  Birkenhead.  He  strapped  on  a  money  belt, 
and  in  it  stowed  the  bulk  of  his  capital,  namely,  three 
pound  ten  in  gold,  distributing  what  remained  of  six- 
teen and  twopence  in  his  waistcoat  pockets ;  he  slipped 
the  German  captain's  revolver  —  that  spolia  opiuia  — 
into  a  back  pocket,  where  it  nestled  very  kindly  —  and, 
after  an  effort  in  arithmetic,  he  inclosed  nine  and  six- 
pence in  an  envelope  addressed  to  the  chief  steward 
in  payment  of  his  beer  and  tobacco  account  for  the 
voyage. 

His  method  of  getting  into  a  shore  boat  was  mas- 
terly in  its  simplicity.  He  went  into  the  wheel  engine- 
house,  waited  his  opportunity,  and  then  clapped  a 
heavy  spanner  in  between  the  helical  cogs  of  the  drive. 


74      MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

The  sturdy  little  engines  hiccoughed  and  stopped,  and 
the  helm  (which  was  hard  over  at  the  time)  caused 
the  Norman  Tozvers  to  make  a  most  alarming  sheer 
across  the  fairway. 

On  the  upper  bridge  the  Point  Lynas  pilot  in  a 
panic  rang  his  main  engines  to  "  full  speed  astern  ", 
and  the  Norman  Tozvers  shivered  and  lurched  herself 
to  a  sudden  standstill  in  the  middle  of  a  lakelet  of 
muddy  foam.  To  her  shot  up  a  small  open  boat,  under 
lug-sail  and  jib,  attracted  by  an  arm  wave  from  the 
mate.     The  two  shabby  men  in  her  looked  up  keenly. 

Mr.  Kettle,  the  Mate,  with  a  rope  in  his  hand, 
clapped  his  feet  against  the  ship's  side,  and  ran  down 
it  nimbly  to  the  boat,  jumping  on  to  her  gunwale  ex- 
actly as  she  rounded  up  alongside. 

"  You're  nippy,"  said  the  shabby  man  at  the  tiller 
as  he  shot  the  boat  into  the  wind. 

"  I  am.  Now,  away  with  you  ashore,  my  lad,  and 
drop  me  at  the  nearest  telegraph  office." 

"  Got  the  price  of  your  passage  on  you?  " 

"  You  can  put  it  down  to  the  firm.  I  guess  it's 
for  their  benefit  I  hailed  you." 

"  Seems  to  me  there's  trouble  on  board.  The  old 
junk  don't  steer.  There's  the  Old  Man  on  the  top 
deck  laying  down  the  time  o'  day  to  the  pilot,  and 
that  bit  of  skirt  on  the  poop's  holdin'  out  beseechin' 
arms  to  some  one  in  this  boat  that  I  don't  think's  me. 
Mister,  by  your  leave,  I'm  going  to  run  alongside  again 
to  see  if  the  firm  ashore  will  really  O.K.  your  bus 
fare  to  that  telegraph  office,  or  if  there's  some  one 


LEADS  UP  TO  MISS  DUBBS  75 

who'll  give  a  bit  more  to  have  you  put  back  on  board. 
Hi,  mister,  put  that  clown." 

Mr.  Kettle,  armed  with  a  stretcher,  was  standing 
up  in  the  boat.  Said  he :  "  If  either  of  you  two 
ducks  don't  carry  out  my  orders  exactly  as  they're 
given,  I'll  knock  one  or  both  of  you  overboard,  and 
sail  your  rotten  old  tub  myself.     D'ye  hear  me?  " 

"  I  suppose  I  do." 

"  Say,  *  sir,'  when  you're  speaking  to  an  officer. 
D'ye  know  your  course,  or  shall  I  set  it  for  you?  " 

"  The  ebb's  making  pretty  hard  still,  but  it'll  be 
slack  water  before  we're  across" — mumble  —  mum- 
ble — "  so  I'd  better  take  you  on  to  Foston,  sir." 

''Why  there?     It  isn't  the  nearest." 

Mr.  Kettle  noted  that  the  man  in  the  bows  looked 
surprised. 

"  It's  quickest,  sir,  with  this  wind  and  tide.  Isn't 
it,  Alfred?" 

And  Alfred,  from  the  bows,  glibly  perjured  him- 
self, and  said  they'd  be  in  at  Foston  telegraph  office 
an  hour  earlier  than  they  could  reach  any  other. 

Mr.  Kettle  did  not  believe  them  but  he  let  it  rest 
at  that.  After  all,  his  telegram,  which  was  merely 
a  message  announcing  arrival  to  Mrs.  Farnish,  was  of 
no  vast  importance,  and  so  he  set  himself  to  smoking 
his  pipe,  and  thinking  gloomily  over  the  mess  he  had 
made  of  the  present,  the  definiteness  with  which  he 
had  lost  Miss  Chesterman,  and  the  hash  he  had  made 
of  his  future. 

"  They'll   take   away   my   new  master's   ticket,    as 


'jd      MARRIAGE  OF.  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

sure  as  there  are  pips  in  little  apples,"  he  told  himself, 
"  and  it's  China  Seas  for  mine  now,  and  a  pig  boat 
with  a  coolie  crew  and  a  yellow  owner." 

Night  fell  on  the  tawny  Mersey,  and  the  ships' 
lights  kindled  in  the  purple  gloom  and  threaded 
through  it  at  a  decorous  pace,  or  swung  rhythmically 
on  a  station.  A  wind  from  the  north  and  east  blew 
chill  across  the  face  of  the  waters,  and  the  outgoing 
and  incoming  steam  traffic  hooted  helm  signals  in 
forty  keys.  The  cool,  damp,  muddy  river-smell,  with 
its  tinge  of  sewage,  came  to  him  like  an  old  friend. 

"  Rice,  chopsticks,  and  pigtails  for  mine,"  Mr.  Ket- 
tle reminded  himself  again.  "  But  they  say  the 
Chinese  girls  are  fine."  And  then,  thumping  the  dew- 
pocked  gunwale  with  a  hard  fist  — "  No,  I'm  blowed 
if  I  do,"  he  swore.  "  The  beastly  British  Board  of 
Trade  shan't  run  me  out  of  my  profession,  simply 
because  I've  done  my  duty  in  that  state  of  life  to  which 
it  pleased  the  Lord  to  call  me.  Ill  win  out  in  spite 
of  all  their  teeth,  and  command  British  ships  for  white 
owners  on  the  decent  seas.     And  I'll  marry — " 

At  that  point,  apparently  from  the  parting  of  its 
halyards,  the  lug-sail  descended  suddenly  and  en- 
veloped Mr.  Kettle  in  its  damp  dew-sodden  folds. 
The  yard  also  hit  him  on  the  head,  and  for  an  in- 
stant he  was  driven  below  the  gunwale  level.  But 
it  took  more  than  a  trifle  like  that  to  knock  a  Western 
Ocean  mate  out  of  time.  He  was  up  again  on  the 
instant. 


LEADS  UP  TO  MISS  DUBBS  yy 

"  You  clumsy  swine/'  he  bawled  from  beneath  his 
covering  to  the  boatmen.  "  I'll  teach  you  to  rig  a 
boat.     Clear  away  this  wreck !  " 

He  sat  up,  and  the  top  of  his  head  under  the  sail 
showed  as  a  round  dome  beneath  the  moonlight.  On 
it,  at  the  full  strength  of  the  steerman's  arm,  descended 
the  oaken  tiller,  and  Air.  Kettle  subsided  as  a  bull 
does  when  it  is  poleaxed. 

Said  Alfred,  the  shabby  man  in  the  bows,  making 
no  effort  to  move  or  help :  "  You've  done  it  now, 
Arthur.  \\'hen  you  signed  to  me  to  cut  the  halyards, 
I  never  thought  you  meant  murder." 

"  Murder  be  blowed,"  retorted  his  friend.  "  I 
doubt  if  I've  put  him  to  sleep  for  an  hour.  You'll 
see  he'll  wake  up  again  in  sixty  minutes  punctual  to 
the  clock,  and  as  full  of  ginger  as  he  can  stick.  He's 
a  hard  case,  mate,  this  one,  if  ever  I  saw  such  a  fel- 
low, and  he'll  carry  a  skull  like  a  cannon-ball,  or 
he'd  have  had  it  fractured  long  before  this.  Now  we'll 
just  inspect  his  bank  balance.  To  be  true  to  his  type 
he  should  carry  the  bulk  of  it  in  a  money  belt  next  the 
meat.  Let's  inspect.  There,  didn't  I  tell  you? 
And  I'll  just  take  the  li'oerty  of  dropping  this  revolver 
over  into  the  ditch.  I  don't  fancy  myself  as  a  marks- 
man, and  if  I  started  any  fancy  shooting  with  it  I 
should  probably  bag  my  dear  old  pal,  Alfred,  instead 
of  the  bearded  one  here.  Well,  old  son,  here's  thirty 
bob,  and  I'll  keep  the  balance  as  my  share,  and  agent's 
commission." 


78       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"But  what  are  we  going  to  do  with  him?  If  we 
take  him  ashore  he'll  lay  a  complaint." 

"  Don't  you  believe  it,  old  son.  His  nibs  here  has 
kicked  over  the  traces;  killed  a  deck-hand,  as  likely  as 
not,  and  was  shy  about  going  on  to  Liverpool  to  meet 
the  police  on  the  pier  head.  You  can  bet  he  didn't 
switch  off  and  come  with  us  just  on  account  of  our 
looks.  And  when  he  steps  ashore,  the  only  thing  he'll 
ask  for  will  be  to  slip  quietly  away  and  no  questions 
asked." 

Alfred  shivered.  *'  I  shall  be  glad  enough  to  see 
the  last  of  him.  He's  a  tough-looking  customer.  I 
hope  he'll  start  to  run  quick." 

"  He  would  if  he  was  let.  The  trouble  for  him 
will  be  that  we've  got  further  use  for  him." 

Alfred  was  clearly  distressed.  "  I  won't  be  a  party 
to  any  more  games,"  he  babbled. 

"  Wait  till  you're  invited,  old  son." 

"But  what  are  you  up  to?  It  isn't  murder?  I 
couldn't  stand  that.  I  —  I  believe  I'd  inform  if  you 
did." 

"  My  brave  boy,  calm  your  twittering  nerves.  The 
gentleman  is  far  more  valuable  to  us  alive  than  dead. 
He  is  going  to  ship  as  fireman  on  a  voyage  to  Val- 
paraiso, and  we  —  or,  perhaps,  I  should  say,  as  you 
don't  seem  inclined  to  chip  in  —  I  will  draw  his  ad- 
vance pay.     Twig? " 

"  But  he'll  come  to  before  you  can  get  him  to 
Birkenhead  or  Liverpool,  and  shipped." 

"  Again,  old  son,  you  undervalue  my  skill.     Permit 


LEADS  UP  TO  MISS  DUBBS  79 

me  to  remind  you  that  once  In  my  shady  past  I  was 
a  doctor  (or  to  be  more  precise,  an  unqualified  medi- 
cal student),  that  being,  of  course.  In  the  days  before 
you  and  I  met  as  comedians  (as  I  think  we  called  our- 
selves) on  the  music-hall  stage,  which  was  before  the 
period  when  we  found  It  convenient  to  go  foreign  in 
a  stoke-hold,  which  again  was  before  we  started  pick- 
ing up  a  livelihood  in  this  present  boat  on  the  Mersey 
estuary." 

"  Oh,  do  get  on,  and  don't  drivel." 

"  As  a  relic  of  one  of  my  earlier  professions  I  In- 
variably carry  a  hypodermic  syringe,  and  a  small  but 
carefully  selected  collection  of  drugs.  Two  tubes  in 
the  waistcoat  pocket  contain  all  the  lot.  It  always 
jars  my  nerves  to  read  the  rot  that  ignorant  novelists 
churn  out  about  doping  an  unwilling  hand  by  putting 
laudanum  in  his  beer,  when  probably  the  beggar  has  a 
distaste  for  beer,  and  wouldn't  drink  it  at  your  hands, 
anyway.  Now  a  little  jab  from  a  hypodermic  needle, 
and  your  patient  gets  his  dose  whether  he  likes  it  or 
not ;  thinks  probably  that  you  have  lurched  up  against 
him  by  accident,  and  scratched  him  with  a  pin  In  your 
waistcoat;  and,  according  to  how  that  little  dose  is 
made  up,  he  promptly  proceeds  to  go  off  to  sleep  for 
a  given  period,  or,  If  you  so  regulate  it,  he  sleeps  on  to 
the  end  of  time.  It's  neat.  It's  scientific,  and  it  leaves 
no  blundering  traces  for  the  fools  of  police  to  read 
from  the  outside,  or  for  an  interfering  analyst  to 
deduce  from  the  contents  of  the  gentleman's  tummy." 

"  You  are  a  devil." 


8o       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  I'll  admit  if  you  like,  old  son,  that  I'm  a  distinct 
danger  to  society  at  present.  But  if  society  would 
combine  together  to  provide  me  with  a  thousand  a 
year  —  and  see  I  didn't  overspend  it  —  why,  I'd  be 
an  ornament  to  the  British  Isles,  an  unobtrusive,  club- 
attending,  well-dressed  ornament,  with  strong  views 
about  the  criminal  classes,  and  a  distinct  talent  for 
breeding  prize  fox  terriers.  Don't  try  and  splice  that 
halyard.     Knot  it,  and  turn  it  end  for  end." 

The  shabby  man  in  the  bows  lifted  the  prostrate 
Mr.  Kettle  to  an  easier  position.  "  He's  as  Hmp  as 
a  bit  of  chewed  string.  I  believe  you've  killed  him. 
Oh,  lord,  Arthur,  what  shall  we  do  next?" 

"  Make  sure  our  passenger  doesn't  come  to  life 
again  with  unpleasant  suddenness.  He's  a  bit  too 
limp  for  my  taste.  Here,  I'll  just  give  him  a  pinch 
of  soothing  syrup.  .  .  .  Ha !  I  told  you  so. 
Catch  hold  of  him  from  behind.  Hit  him  over  the 
head  with  the  boat-hook.  Well,  hold  him  like  that  if 
you  like,  then,  till  I  get  this  quieter  jammed  into 
his  thigh.  .  .  .  Phe,w!  Alfred,  old  son,  that  was 
a  close  call.  The  man's  all  steel  springs  with  brass 
ends  to  them.  He'd  got  me  nearly  strangled  before 
I  had  him  quieted  off.  There'll  be  a  nice  quiet  stoke- 
hold somewhere  while  this  little  man's  being  taught  to 
shovel  coal." 

"  Where  are  you  going  to  put  inshore?  If  he's  to 
be  shipped,  I  suppose  Liverpool's  best." 

"  I  don't  think.  Liverpool,  say  you,  and  by  your 
own  showing  you're  a  nervous  man  ?     There  are  more 


LEADS  UP  TO  MISS  DUBBS  8l 

toughs  in  Liverpool  than  in  any  other  seaport  in  the 
British  Isles,  and  in  consequence  every  Liverpool 
bobby  has  both  eyes  sticking  about  a  foot  out  of  his 
head  looking  for  them.  No,  Alfred,  I  don't  escort 
a  gentleman  with  drooping  head,  who  has  temporarily 
lost  the  use  of  his  lower  limbs  down  Liverpool  streets 
at  something  past  midnight,  although  he  is  got  up  in  a 
uniform  that  hints  he's  a  seafaring  man.  Which  re- 
minds me  the  aforesaid  uniform  is  a  heap  too  smart 
for  the  poor  chap  to  wake  up  in  and  find  himself  in 
a  stinkin'  stokers'  fo'c'sle.  We  must  find  him  some- 
thing more  suitable.  Can  we  draw  on  your  wardrobe, 
old  son?" 

"  I  wish  you'd  stop  your  rotting." 

"  Of  course,  I'd  forgotten.  You've  only  the  clothes 
you  at  present  sit,  or,  to  be  more  accurate,  sprawl  in. 
And  I'm  in  the  same  box.  Of  course  we  did  agree, 
come  to  think  of  it,  that  the  troup  should  travel  light 
this  tour.  Bit  of  a  dandy,  isn't  he,  our  friend,  the 
juggins?  I'd  like  to  change  duds  with  him,  but  I'm 
afraid  his  are  a  bit  too  smart  to  dress  my  present  part 
in;  they'd  call  too  much  attention  from  the  eyes  of 
beauty,  and  so  on ;  and  as  a  further  argument,  they're 
about  half  a  mile  too  small  for  me." 

"  Well,  we  can't  invent  clothes.  We  shall  have  to 
tear  and  dirty  these  he's  wearing." 

"  Not  on  your  life.  They  represent  meals  for  a 
week,  or  perhaps  drink  for  a  night.  Old  son,  you 
mustn't  get  into  this  way  of  talking  as  if  you  were  a 
millionaire.     We  shall  be  ashore  in  another  ten  min- 


$2       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

utes  now.  We'll  leave  his  nibs  here  as  boat-keeper 
>vhen  we've  tied  her  to  the  wall,  and  if  he's  covered 
up  with  the  lug-sail  he'll  lie  snug  and  not  attract  at- 
tention, and  then  we'll  toot  off  to  the  Mason's  Arms, 
have  just  one  Scotch  apiece  to  wet  the  luck  —  they 
give  you  a  big  one  for  fourpence  —  and  then  buy  the 
landlord's  old  gardening  suit  for  the  poor  chap  that's 
tumbled  into  the  river  and  is  afraid  he's  going  to  have 
another  attack  of  rheumatism.  Not  a  pal  of  ours  by 
any  means,  but  if  a  man  doesn't  look  after  his  neighbor 
a  bit  in  this  world,  who  will  ?  " 

This  program  was  carried  out  very  much  as  it 
was  arranged,  except  for  the  matter  of  one  drink 
apiece.  The  caress  of  Scotch  whisky  on  his  tongue 
and  palate  was  a  thing  the  less  bold  of  the  two  rogues 
never  could  resist,  and  numbers  two,  three,  and  four 
followed  the  opening  glass.  The  silent  sullen  Alfred 
grew  talkative,  and  the  smart  barmaid  who  sat  at  the 
receipt  of  custom  more  than  once  admonished  him 
that  that  would  do. 

*''Oh!  I'm  a  pirate  bold!'"  sang  Alfred,  "'My 
shipmates  they  call  me  the  Grogger;  Fine  plunder  I've 
got  in  my  hold,  That  I  gathered  right  out  on  the 
Dogger.' — Another  glass  of  the  same,  please,  miss." 

"If  you  don't  stop  that  noise,"  said  the  barmaid, 
"  you'll  have  the  landlord  in,  and  I  don't  recommend 
him  when  he's  disturbed  from  his  supper." 

"  Let's  have  the  Scotch,  then." 

"  You've  had  enough.  I'm  sure  you'd  better  do  as 
your  friend  asks,  and  go  out  and  take  a  walk." 


LEADS  UP  TO  MISS  DUBBS  83 

"  Yes,  come  along,  William,  old  son." 

"  My  name's  not  William,  as  you  should  know  per- 
fectly well  by  this  time." 

"  Miss  Dubbs,"  called  a  deep  and  fruity  voice  from 
behind  the  glass  door. 

*'  Coming,  pa,"  said  the  barmaid. 

"  No,  don't  come,"  boomed  the  voice,  "  but  just  tell 
them  rowdies  to  get  out.  Tell  'em  they're  not  our 
class  here  in  the  Snug.  Tell  'em  they'll  be  better 
served  in  our  Jug  and  Bottle,  up  the  yard.  Tell  'em 
they'll  enjoy  themselves  better  still  at  the  Colliers' 
Rest,  down  the  street.  Tell  'em  I  can  see  their  clothes 
through  the  glass  panel.  Miss  Dubbs,  and  'ear  all  their 
low  remarks  through  the  woodwork.  And  tell  'em,, 
Miss  Dubbs,  that  I  don't  like  either." 

The  barmaid  had  a  sense  of  humor.  She  did  not 
retransmit  the  message.  She  merely  nodded  her 
elaborately  dressed  head  and  remarked :  "  Now, 
you've  heard,"  and  obviously  looked  upon  the  pair  to 
make  their  exit. 

She  was  a  deep-hipped,  full-bosomed,  strong-com- 
plexioned  young  woman,  quite  clearly  able  to  take 
care  of  herself,  and  the  shabby  Alfred  grasped  all  this 
in  one  muzzy  glance,  and  made  toward  the  swing 
doors.  His  friend,  however,  put  a  hand  on  his  coat 
tail,  and  capsized  him  gently  on  a  bench. 

"  Now,  don't  you  mind  my  friend  George,  miss. 
He's  nothing  further  to  say  —  have  you,  old  son? 
There,  you  see,  not  a  word.  He's  been  suffering  a 
good  deal  from  exposure  —  and,  for  that  matter,  so 


84       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

have  I  —  and  the  warmth  of  your  bar  and  the  whisky 
have  made  us  forget  what  we  came  in  for.  Fact  is, 
there's  a  fellow  outside  down  in  our  boat  that's  been 
overboard,  and  got  a  bad  chill.  He's  T.T.,  and  won't 
take  a  drink ;  so  we  offered  to  find  him  a  dry  suit  of 
clothes.  D'ye  think  the  guv'nor's  got  such  a  thing  to 
dispose  of?  " 

"  No,"  said  the  big  bass  voice  at  the  other  side  of 
the  glass  door. 

"Of  course,  so  far  as  our  means  go,  we  wish  to 
pay.  It  would  be  a  charity  if  you  could  find  some- 
thing.    The  poor  chap's  had  rheumatic  fever  once." 

Again  the  big  voice  made  the  glasses  tingle.  "  Ma 
says  they  can  have  my  old  garden  clothes  for  two 
half-crowns,  Miss  Dubbs.  No,  call  it  three-and-six, 
and  they  have  to  replace  the  missing  buttons  them- 
selves." 

"Well?"  said  the  barmaid. 

"That's  a  deal,"  said  Arthur,  the  seedy.  "You 
fetch  them,  my  dear." 

"I'm  not  your  dear,"  said  Miss  Dubbs  pointedly, 
"  and  it's  not  my  place  to  do  up-stairs  work.  Be- 
sides, I  can't  leave  the  bar."  She  pulled  a  bell 
smartly.  "  I'll  tell  the  servant  to  fetch  them  for  you. 
I  think  your  friend's  going  out.  Perhaps  you'd  like 
to  go  with  him." 

"  I'll  sit  beside  hirn  on  that  nice  comfortable  oak 
bench,  and  then  you'll  see  he'll  be  perfectly  satisfied. 
Perhaps,  as  you've  gone  so  far  as  to  ring  that  bell 
for  the  menial,  you'd  ask  her  when  she  comes  to  have 


LEADS  UP  TO  MISS  DUBBS  85 

a  couple  of  good  thick  threepenny  sandwiches  put 
up  for  us." 

"  Sandwiches  are  fourpence  apiece  at  this  house." 

"  We  can  eat  the  extra  pennyworth,  my  dear. 
Make  them  so." 

The  barmaid  retired  into  a  novelette,  and  the  clock 
ticked  loudly  in  lieu  of  conversation.  Alfred  at  in- 
tervals seemed  inclined  to  snore,  and  when  he  did  his 
companion  shook  him  viciously,  and  (as  the  barmaid, 
who  was  quietly  watching  the  pair  in  the  glass  at  the 
back  of  the  bar,  thought)  nervously. 

The  barmaid  was  a  very  healthy  unimaginative 
person  with,  as  befitted  her  calling,  a  good  deal  of  ex- 
perience of  mankind,  and,  as  she  freely  owned  after- 
ward, from  the  moment  that  the  two  shabby  men 
had  entered  the  door,  she  dimly  gathered  that  there 
was  something  wrong  about  them.  To  start  with, 
she  anticipated  that  they  would  try  to  pass  bad  coin 
on  her,  or  partake  of  refreshment  and  depart  suddenly 
without  paying  for  it.  Or,  again,  they  might  have 
come  in  to  steal  ash  trays  or  to  carry  off  the  brass 
fire-irons  by  way  of  keepsake;  and,  even  when  none 
of  these  things  happened,  she  was  far  from  comfort- 
able. She  was  convinced  that  there  was  something 
unwholesome  about  them. 

At  last  the  sandwiches  arrived,  and  huge  unsightly 
hunks  they  were.  The  shabby  men  accepted  them 
without  complaint  —  and  paid.  The  maid  also 
brought  the  clothes  unhandily  tied  up  in  a  newspaper. 

"  Here's  your  three-and-six,"  said  Arthur  civilly. 


86       MARRIAGE  OE  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  But  don't  you  want  to  look  them  over  first?  " 

"  Oh !  I  guess  they'll  do,"  said  the  shabby  man  with 
the  refined  voice,  and  roused  his  shabby  companion, 
and  with  him  went  through  the  door  and  out  into  the 
night. 

"  Well,  I'm  blessed,"  said  Miss  Dubbs,  and  then, 
"  Pa,"  she  called  through  the  glass  doors,  "  will  you 
please  give  an  eye  to  the  bar  for  a  bit?  I  want  to 
go  up-stairs." 

"  Certainly,  Miss  Dubbs,"  boomed  the  big  bass 
voice,  and  a  dapper  little  man,  whose  head  came  up  to 
the  level  of  the  barmaid's  chin,  trotted  into  the  bar 
parlor  at  one  door  as  she  swept  out  through  the  other. 

Miss  Emily  Dubbs  went  to  the  cofi^ee-room  above, 
sat  herself  in  the  window,  and  pulled  aside  a  corner 
of  the  blind.  Outside,  in  the  moonshine,  the  little 
strip  of  tidal  harbor  showed  as  clear  as  day,  and  across 
the  pavement  which  led  to  it  walked  the  two  shabby 
men,  arm  in  arm,  with  their  purple  shadows  chasing 
them.  When  they  got  to  the  edge  of  the  quay  the  one 
called  Arthur  sat  his  friend  carefully  on  a  bollard, 
and,  when  satisfied  that  he  had  acquired  a  balance 
there,  unpacked  the  newspaper  parcel  of  clothes,  and 
prepared  to  descend  to  a  small  boat  whose  position 
was  shown  by  a  mast  that  projected  above  the  gun- 
wale. 

An  impish  inspiration  seized  upon  Miss  Dubbs,  and 
for  a  moment  she  laughed,  and  then  she  acted  upon 
it.  She  lifted  the  sash  of  the  window,  and,  then 
drawing  the  blind  still  more  closely  toward  the  jamb 


LEADS  UP  TO  MISS  DUBBS  87 

so  that  only  her  mouth  was  exposed,  she  called  out 
loudly  for  "  Police,"  and  then  again  for  "  Police,"  and 
then  with  a  further  shrill  cry,  exclaimed  "  Murder ! " 

The  effect  was  sufficiently  startling.  The  shabby 
man  who  was  sitting,  sprang  up  as  though  the  bollard 
had  suddenly  stung  him,  and  ran  with  ungainly  strides 
up  into  the  little  town.  The  panic  was  infectious. 
Arthur,  from  below,  clambered  up  over  the  string- 
piece,  called  aloud  upon  the  name  of  his  Maker,  and 
followed  with  precipitate  pace.  And  where  they  went 
the  present  writer  neither  knows  nor  cares,  but  can 
only  point  out  that  from  now  onward  they  vanish 
from  the  pages  of  this  memoir. 

Equally  strange  to  relate,  the  outcry  raised  no  fur- 
ther disturbance.  The  houses  on  the  quay  remained 
deaf  behind  their  shutters,  and  the  town  policeman 
(if,  indeed,  he  heard)  gave  no  sign,  but,  after  the 
manner  of  his  tribe,  crunched  stolidly  along  his 
beat,  and  did  not  seek  to  ram  a  chivalrous  helm  into 
unnecessary  disturbance. 

Now  to  begin  with.  Miss  Dubbs  was  distinctly 
elated  with  the  success  of  her  alarm.  Instinctively 
she  had  disliked  the  two  shabby  men,  but  as  she  had 
nothing  definite  against  them,  her  outcry  might  be 
described  as  in  the  main  experimental.  The  result  of 
it  startled  her,  and  as  she  thought  it  over  more,  shook 
her. 

Idly  she  had  cried  "Murder!"  and  the  men  had 
run  as  though  the  law  itself  was  actually  at  their  heels. 
She  was  a  big  young  woman,  and  tightly  incased  in 


88       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

black  satin  which  leaves  small  space  for  the  more 
violent  emotions,  but  she  caught  herself  shivering. 
Had  murder  been  done  ? 

She  craned  out  of  the  window,  and  looked  up  the 
street,  and  then  she  looked  down.  There  was  no  one 
to  call  to  aid,  no  one  to  consult.  For  one  fleeting 
instant  she  thought  of  the  little  man  with  the  big 
voice  and  the  big  words  down-stairs,  and  then  dis- 
missed the  idea  with  a  poof!  Then  she  darted  across 
to  her  own  bedroom,  hunted  out  an  article  of  wool 
work  known  as  a  "  cloud  ",  fitted  it  dexterously  over 
her  masses  of  black  hair  in  front  of  the  glass,  and 
then  ran  nimbly  down-stairs  and  out  into  the  street. 

Outside  she  did  not  run,  because  ladies  never  hurry, 
although  for  one  thing  and  another  she  felt  mon- 
strously inclined  to  do  so ;  but  she  walked  her  quickest, 
and,  looking  behind,  was  thankful  for  the  shadow 
that  was  kind  enough  to  keep  her  company;  and  in 
the  course  of  forty  steps  stood  upon  the  string  piece 
of  the  quay  and  looked  down  at  an  untidy  weather- 
beaten  boat  below.  On  the  floor  of  it,  partly  covered 
with  a  blackened  sail,  was  a  man.  He  was  lying  on 
his  back,  and  his  face  was  white  under  the  moonshine, 
and  his  eyelids  were  dropped  but  not  fully  shut.  His 
red  torpedo  beard  probably  accentuated  the  pallor  of 
his  face. 

For  the  moment  she  thought  him  dead,  and  stood 
there  stooping  over  the  boat,  fascinated.  Then  her 
eye  lighted  on  a  ladder  of  iron  rungs  leading  down 
from  the  string  piece,  and  she  dropped  to  her  knees 


LEADS  UP  TO  MISS  DUBBS  89 

and  clambered  down  into  the  boat.  She  was  a  fine 
strapping  young  woman  with  a  good  wholesome 
nerve,  and  all  of  the  feminine  instinct  for  protection. 
She  was  pretty  well  certain  that  the  man  was  dead, 
but  she  did  not  shrink  from  him.  She  put  her  hand 
on  his  head,  discovered  on  the  instant  that  he  lived, 
and  then  for  the  first  time  felt  an  impulse  to  cry  out. 
But  she  kept  this  back,  sat  on  one  of  the  boat's 
thwarts,  gathered  the  man's  head  on  her  lap,  and 
spoke  to  him. 

In  reply  he  groaned  very,  very  faintly.  She  could 
just  hear  the  sound,  and  leaned  her  ear  to  his  lips  in 
case  he  could  form  his  last  wishes  into  words. 

"If  you  —  could  kill  —  that  untidy  fellovs' — • 
Arthur  —  I'd  be  obliged  to  you." 

"  Certainly,"  was  her  brisk  reply.  "  But  for  the 
present  you  must  get  out  of  this  boat  and  come  up  to 
the  house.  You're  near  perished  to  death  with  cold. 
Do  you  think  you  can  climb  up  if  I  help  you?  " 

He  obviously  could  not.  He  had  slipped  back  into 
unconsciousness  again,  and  her  gentle  shaking  could 
not  rouse  him.  So  with  an  eftort  she  took  him  in 
her  arms,  and  then,  standing  up,  hove  him  on  to  the 
string  piece  of  the  quay  above;  then  panting  with 
exertion  and  excitement,  she  followed  to  the  upper 
level  herself.  And  then  once  more  whipping  her 
arms  underneath  him,  she  carried  him  sturdily  across 
the  moonlit  stones,  and  through  the  doorway  of  the 
Mason's  Arms. 


CHAPTER  VII 

CREMATION  OF  A  TOBACCO-PIPE 

tCpEOPLE  have  no  idea,"  said  Miss  Dubbs,  "how 

■*'  careful  us  bar  ladies  have  to  be.  People  seem 
to  think  that  because  we  can  be  affable  with  boys  that 
come  in  for  a  glass  and  a  chat,  we're  the  same  to  every- 
body. I'm  not  denying,  too,  that  there  may  be  bar 
girls  in  some  of  the  smaller  establishments  who  are 
a  bit  common.  But,  in  a  respectable  house  such  as 
this,  you  can  bet  that  a  girl  knows  her  place  and  keeps 
it,  and  if  she  didn't  the  guv'nor  would  very  soon  show 
her  what's  what." 

"  I  notice,"  said  Mr.  Kettle,  "  that  you  call  him  pa. 
Any  relation?  " 

"  No  more'n  I  am  to  you.  All  the  village  calls  him 
pa,  and  the  old  lady  ma,  for  that  matter,  and  as  they 
seem  to  like  it  I  follow  their  example.  Relation,  in- 
deed !  I  should  think  not.  My  people  are  very  dif- 
ferent style.  I  don't  tell  it  to  everybody  but  as  you 
are  a  sort  of  friend  by  now,  Captain,  I  may  tell  you 
in  confidence  that  my  father's  a  minister." 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  should  say  a  '  sort  of  '  friend. 
I  know  that  after  all  you've  done  for  me,  I  feel  that 
you  are  about  the  best  friend  I've  got.  But  then  I 
suppose  — " 

90 


CREMATION  OF  A  PIPE  91 

"You  suppose  what?" 

"  You're  accustomed  to  being  kind  to  people." 

"  If  you  mean  that  I'm  in  the  habit  of  going  out 
just  before  quitting  time,  and  picking  up  drugged 
young  men  out  of  boats  and  carrying  them  across 
here,  and  putting  them  into  apartments  they  haven't 
ordered,  you're  mistaken." 

"  Kick  me,  and  you'll  find  I'll  take  it  lying 
down." 

"  Well,  I  didn't  mean  to  be  unkind,  Captain,  but 
you  must  admit  that  you  brought  it  on  yourself.  I 
know  you  gentlemen  think  that  because  a  girl's  in 
business  behind  a  bar  she  can't  keep  herself  select. 
But  you  never  made  a  greater  mistake  in  your  lives. 
I'll  tell  you  why.  Between  customers,  during  the 
slack  times  of  the  day,  we  have  time  for  reading,  and 
so,  naturally,  we  pick  up  a  lot  that  other  business 
ladies  don't  have  a  chance  of  learning.  Look  at  this 
novel  by  Charles  Garvice!  Now  what  that  man 
doesn't  know  about  life  in  the  higher  circles  is  obvi- 
ously not  worth  knowing." 

"Which  was  your  father's  denomination?" 

"  Methodist  New  Connection." 

"  Mrs.  Farnish,  who  brought  me  up,  was  a  Bible 
Christian.  Captain  Farnish,  after  some  voyages  was 
a  strict  Wesleyan,  and  after  others  he  was  a  Plymouth 
Brother.  And  once  he  said  he  thought  he'd  turn 
Spiritualist,  but  it  didn't  last." 

"And  you  yourself,  Captain?" 

"  Well,  between  ourselves,  miss,  I  see  points  in  them 


92       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

all,  and  perfection  in  none  of  them.  My  own  idea  is 
that  a  man  doesn't  take  up  religion  at  all  heartily  till 
he's  married,  and  for  myself  I  think  it'll  be  some- 
thing that  combines  the  good  points  of  all  of  them 
and  yet  is  a  creed  distinct  and  apart.  And  I  think  it 
ought  to  have  a  smack  of  the  country  in  it.  Have  you 
ever  been  in  Wharfedale?" 

"  I  can't  say  I  have." 

"  I  was  there  once  for  a  week  when  I  was  a  boy, 
and  I  have  never  forgotten  it  —  grass  slopes,  and  lime- 
stone hills,  and  moors  on  top  of  them  —  just  the  spot 
for  a  new  religion.  When  I  can  afford  it  and  am  able 
to  retire  from  the  sea,  I  should  like  to  set  up  on  a 
farm  there,  and  found  the  Wharf edale  Particular 
Methodists." 

Miss  Dubbs  clasped  her  hands.  "  What  a  noble 
work!" 

The  sailor  took  a  grip  on  his  courage.  "  Are  you 
firmly  convinced  about  the  New  Connection  ?  " 

"  I  must  say  it  has  points,  many  points,  though  on 
some  of  their  circuits  the  arrangements  for  the  min- 
ister are  disgusting,  and  the  things  they  expect  his 
family  to  do  are  out  of  all  reason.  But  since  I  left 
home  and  went  into  business,  of  course  I've  been  into 
other  places  of  worship,  and  naturally  they  opened 
my  eyes  to  the  fact  that  there  are  possibilities  outside 
the  New  Connection." 

"  Miss,"  said  the  little  sailor  enthusiastically,  "  I 
never  came  across  any  one  with  your  amount  of  sense 
in  dealing  with  a  question  like  this.     In  fact,  the  only 


CREMATION  OF  A  PIPE  93 

lady  I  ever  discussed  the  question  with  —  well,  she 
was  a  disappointment." 

"  And  who  was  she,  pray  ?  " 

"  Passenger  I  came  across  once  on  a  steamboat. 
Very  attractive  lady.  But  she  didn't  seem  to  know 
there  was  anything  that  counted  outside  the  Church 
of  England,  except,  perhaps,  the  Romans,  and,  as  she 
said,  it  was  her  idea  that  fancy  religions  didn't  amount 
to  a  hill  of  beans." 

"  Then  I  shouldn't  call  her  a  lady  at  all.  I  should 
call  her  a  cat." 

"  Oh,  she  was  a  lady  right  enough.  A  lady  by 
birth,  too;  her  father  was  a  baronet,  and  her  brother 
wears  the  title  now." 

"Why  didn't  you  say  so,  then?"  said  Miss  Dubbs 
sharply.  She  was  annoyed  at  being  caught  out  in 
error.  "Of  course,  if  she  was  a  real  lady  of  that 
sort,  she  would  be  bound  to  go  to  church." 

"  Then  do  you  mean  — " 

Miss  Dubbs  nodded  her  elaborate  black  head  im- 
pressively. "  Never  you  mind  what  I  do  mean.  You 
gentlemen  who  are  officers  at  sea  know  a  lot  about 
the  sun,  and  the  moon,  and  stars,  and  boilers,  and  pas- 
sengers, and  geography,  and  all  that.  But,  let  me  tell 
you,  you  miss  a  heap.  You  don't  read.  You  don't 
know  anything  about  society,  and  what  society  does, 
and  where  it  goes  to  worship." 

"  It  goes  where  its  convictions  carry  it." 

With  obvious  difficulty  Miss  Dubbs  held  back  her 
superior  information.     "  It  will  be  time  enough   for 


94       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

people  like  you  or  me,  Captain,  to  think  about  chang- 
ing over  to  —  I  mean  to  get  ourselves  into  real  society 
when  we've  a  pile  of  money.  And  for  the  present, 
as  you  tell  me  you're  out  of  a  berth,  I  make  no  bones 
about  telling  you  that,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  my 
rich  aunt  shows  at  present  no  signs  of  dying  and  leav- 
ing me  all  her  savings.  In  fact,  she's  even  been  so 
unkind  as  not  to  take  the  trouble  to  be  born.  I'm  al- 
ways hoping,  of  course,  that  some  one  will  leave  me 
a  fortune;  they  always  do  in  books,  and  it's  cheering 
to  look  forward  to  the  day  when  one  will  be  rich; 
but  for  the  present  the  salaries  paid  in  our  business 
are  disgracefully  small,  and  I  tell  you  plainly  it's  as 
much  as  I  can  do  to  dress  anything  like  respectably 
on  mine,  let  alone  buy  the  furs  that  a  lady  ought  to 
have  when  she's  in  my  position." 

Mr.  Kettle  sighed  deeply.  "  A  lady  like  you  will 
marry  a  rich  man.  You  couldn't  do  justice  to  your- 
self on  less." 

Miss  Dubbs  bridled.  "  I  hope  my  husband,  if  ever 
I  have  one,  will  some  day  become  rich  and  powerful. 
But  if  any  one  was  to  suggest  I  should  ever  marry  for 
money  alone,  I  believe  I  should  forget  I  was  a  lady 
and  use  vulgar  language.  If  you  read  at  all,  Captain, 
you'd  know  that  Mr.  Charles  —  that  all  the  best  au- 
thorities tell  you  plainly  that  to  marry  for  anything 
except  love  is  simply  to  ask  for  trouble,  and  that  last's 
a  thing  which  yours  sincerely  is  going  to  avoid  if  she 
knows  it." 

"  Well,  the  Lord  be  thanked  for  that,  though,  to 


CREMATION  OF  A  PIPE  95 

tell  the  truth,  I  didn't  think  you  meant  anything  else. 
But,  miss,  on  my  part  let  me  tell  you  something,  too. 
My  idea  of  the  matter  runs  like  this :  A  man  who  asks 
a  lady  to  marry  him  when  he's  got  nothing  but  his 
ticket,  and  no  money  in  hand,  and  no  billet  to  go  to, 
deserves  a  suit  of  tar  and  feathers.  Mark,  I'm 
speaking  only  of  the  business  of  the  sea,  because 
that's  all  I  know  about.  But  you  can  take  it  from  me, 
miss,  that  its  uncertainness  can  only  be  described  as 
beastly.  A  man  may  to-day  have  the  best  kind  of 
prospects  imaginable;  he  may  be  known  as  a  smart 
driving  mate,  good  ship's  husband,  good  navigator; 
and  to-morrow,  through  no  fault  of  his  own,  except 
that  he  honestly  carried  out  his  duty,  he's  —  as  a 
mate  or  a  master  —  blacklisted  to  all  eternity.  That's 
the  British  mercantile  marine." 

From  down  the  stairway  a  great  voice  boomed: 
"  Miss  Dubbs,  bar,  please." 

"There's  pa  —  well,  the  guv'nor  if  you  like.  I 
must  be  going.  I'm  three  minutes  past  my  time  as  it 
is,  and  he's  nuts  on  punctuality." 

"  Half  a  minute,  miss.  I  saw  an  accordion  in  the 
private  room  at  the  back  of  the  Snug.     Who  plays?  " 

"  Oh,  pa  thinks  he  does.  But  singing's  his  strong 
suit.  He  really  can  sing  —  if  one  cares  to  listen  to 
those  deep  Sailors'  Grave  things  that  come  right  from 
the  boots." 

"  Would  an  accompanist  please  him  ?  " 

"  Why,  can  you  play?  " 
Better  than  most.     I've  every  tunc  in  the  Young 


(C 


96       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

Methodist's  Hymnal  Companion  off  by  heart,  and  I 
can  improvise  as  well.  You  find  me,  miss,  in  a  bit 
of  a  desperate  strait.  I've  lost  my  billet,  and  I'd  no 
more  sense  than  to  let  a  brace  of  mud  pirates  rob  me 
of  all  my  ready  money,  and  so  I  must  put  modesty 
aside,  and  say  what  I  can  do,  and  accordion-playing's 
one  of  the  big  items." 

Miss  Dubbs  tucked  an  encouraging  hand  under 
Mr.  Kettle's  arm.  "  You  come  down  with  me,  Cap- 
tain. I'll  put  you  on  the  ground  floor  with  pa  inside 
three  minutes." 

The  landlord,  as  was  natural,  was  skeptical  at  first; 
talked  of  accordion  players  he  had  known  who  were 
"  equal  to  Padriwhiskey  and  Mahryall  " ;  and  spoke  of 
the  risk  and  strain  to  his  voice  in  singing  to  an  in- 
efficient accompanist.  But  Mr.  Kettle  had  the  in- 
strument in  hand  by  this,  had  run  his  fingers  over  the 
keys,  and  presently  was  playing  such  a  soothing  im- 
provisation to  the  little  man's  recitative,  that  presently 
the  monologue  stopped,  and  the  small  fist  rattled  the 
glasses  on  the  table. 

"  By  Jings,  Captain,  you're  a  take-in.  I  thought 
you  were  a  tin-pot  amytoor.  Why,  you're  a  bloomin' 
pro.  I  see  what  we're  in  for,  and  that's  an  evening 
of  'armony.  Miss  Dubbs,  kindly  take  the  captain's 
order.  Mine's  the  usual.  And  ma  will  have  a  red 
port  wine.  And  now.  Captain,  if  you'll  kindly  do 
what  you  can  with  The  Bay  of  Biscay,  key  of  E  flat, 
I'll  supply  the  rest." 

The  concert  took  place  in  the  inside  private  parlor, 


CREMATION  OF  A  PIPE  97 

in  an  atmosphere  that  was  entirely  unventilated,  and 
rich  with  the  mingled  odors  of  tobacco  smoke  and 
toasted  cheese,  and  as  the  glass  door  into  the  Snug 
was  hospitably  left  open,  that  latter  apartment  was 
crowded  with  an  appreciative  audience  who  rapped 
approval  of  each  successive  item  with  sticks,  feet,  and 
tumblers.  Miss  Dubbs  pumped  beer,  and  drew 
whisky  till  her  strong  right  arm  was  wearied ;  and 
when  eleven  o'clock  and  turning-out  time  arrived, 
there  was  a  unanimous  vote  against  any  government 
that  laid  down  arbitrary  laws  as  to  when  a  gentleman 
should  leave  enjoyment  and  go  home  to  bed. 

"By  jings!"  said  the  landlord  hoarsely,  as  he 
locked  the  front  door  on  the  last  customer's  heels,  and 
kept  the  rest  of  the  atmosphere  from  escaping ;  "  by 
jings !  I've  not  had  such  a  night  since  we  opened 
here.  This  has  got  to  be  repeated.  The  customers 
will  expect  it.  Miss  Dubbs,  we'll  take  a  Dock  and 
Joris,  and  I  daresay  you'd  like  a  cream  de  mint  your- 
self. Captain,  as  we  say  in  the  lodge,  here's  '  Round 
the  Neck ! '  " 

Captain  Kettle  stayed  in  free  quarters  at  the 
Mason's  Arms  for  a  week,  and  at  the  end  of  that 
period  found  a  job  as  timekeeper  on  a  railroad  ex- 
tension works.  The  camp  was  some  considerable 
number  of  miles  away,  and  the  employment  was 
thoroughly  distasteful  to  him.  He  ached  to  be  back 
again  at  sea;  but  with  scandal  (as  he  was  convinced) 
awaiting  him  in  Liverpool,  he  chose  the  safer  part, 
and  prepared  to  lie  low  till  the  air  cleared  again. 


98       MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

On  Saturday  midday  he  was  officially  free,  but  in 
effect  had  to  spend  all  the  afternoon,  and  most  of  the 
evening,  writing  up  books;  and  on  alternate  Sundays 
some  of  the  gangs  worked  overtime,  and  he  had  to  be 
on  watch  to  check  the  hours  to  be  paid  for.  His  pred- 
ecessor in  the  post,  being  a  high-minded  British 
workman,  had  decided  he  would  be  no  man's  slave, 
and  had  handed  in  his  resignation  in  a  manner  that 
insured  its  instant  acceptance.  But  to  Mr.  Kettle 
the  hours  were  light  enough.  When  engaged  in  his 
own  profession,  as  a  modern  mate,  he  had  taken  it 
for  granted  that  he  had  to  work  seven  days  a  week, 
whether  in  harbor  or  at  sea,  and  for  most  of  the 
twenty-four  hours  of  each  of  those  days,  so  that  with 
a  training  like  that  at  his  back,  any  shore  duty  was 
likely  to  come  light  enough.  His  main  trouble  was 
that  the  distance  and  these  long  hours  made  it  prac- 
tically impossible  for  him  to  slip  away  and  see  Miss 
Dubbs  at  Foston. 

Save  on  his  pay  he  could  not.  He  was  not  ex- 
travagant. He  liked  his  glass  of  beer  and  his  pipe 
of  tobacco;  and  though  these  were  practically  his  only 
luxuries,  it  took  practically  every  penny  he  earned 
barely  to  live.  The  reason  was  simple.  He  had  spent 
all  his  grown  life  at  sea,  where  food  and  lodging  are 
provided  as  part  of  the  scheme  of  life,  and  he  had 
none  of  a  landsman's  training  in  buying  these  things 
for  himself. 

Moreover,  and  this  was  very  typical  of  him,  he  was 
always   conscious   of   holding   a  master's   certificate, 


CREMATION  OF  A  PIPE  99 

and  was  very  sensitive  about  living  in  any  style  which 
he  conceived  to  be  below  a  shipmaster's  dignity. 
There  are  very  strict  sumptuary  laws  about  these  mat- 
ters; and  even  if  he  had  felt  any  inclination  to  give 
way  on  small  points  of  etiquette,  owing  to  force  of 
existing  circumstances,  the  thought  of  Miss  Emily 
Dubbs  in  the  background  always  kept  him  up  to  the 
most  exacting  letter  of  the  sea  rubric. 

Miss  Dubbs  had  swelled  out  her  chest  when  she 
laid  down  the  law  on  the  matter,  and  had  spoken 
with  no  uncertain  voice.  "  If  I  was  an  officer,"  said 
she,  "  I'd  be  an  officer.  If  I  knew  I  was  a  captain, 
and  I  was  down  on  my  luck,  and  I  went  into  a  house 
of  call,  starving,  and  they  asked  me  kindly  to  step 
into  the  kitchen  and  take  my  meal  there,  d'ye  think 
I'd  do  it?  Not  me!  I'd  starve  first.  Why  it  would 
be  like  asking  a  bar  lady  to  carry  coals  to  a  bedroom, 
or  wheel  out  visitors'  children  in  a  perambulator." 

It  was  Miss  Dubbs,  in  fact,  who  rescued  Mr.  Ket- 
tle from  the  railway  extension,  and  sent  him  to  sea 
again;  and  the  first  news  of  her  move  was  conveyed 
to  the  poor  stranded  sailor  telegraphically. 

"  To  Kettle  Railway  works  Llandharmallic,"  it  ran. 
"  Come  here  immediate.  Captaincy  offers.  Will  ex- 
pect you  5  :25  train.     Miss  Dubbs." 

His  request  to  the  engineer  in  charge  for  leave  on 
urgent  private  affairs  met  with  a  flat  refusal,  couched 
in  language  that  invited  the  blow  to  follow  up.  The 
engineer,  as  a  point  of  fact,  was  in  mathematical 
trouble  at  the  moment  over  the  amount  of  spoil  it 


100     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

would  take  to  construct  a  certain  "  fill  ",  and  Mr.  Ket- 
tle arrived  in  the  office  just  in  time  to  perform  the 
function  of  whipping-boy. 

But  the  mariner  was  taking  no  chances. 

"  I'd  been  aching  for  weeks,"  he  explained  pa- 
thetically afterward,  "  for  a  chance  to  spread  that 
engineer's  nose  across  his  face,  and  send  him  home 
with  his  e3^e  in  a  sling,  and  he  knew  it,  and  I  make 
no  doubt  had  taken  his  dirty  precautions.  I  should 
have  had  time  to  have  sewn  him  up  all  right,  but  the 
police  would  have  been  in  by  the  end  of  the  scrap, 
and  I  couldn't  afford  to  waste  a  minute,  much  less 
risk  a  day.  So  I  let  him  off;  but,  please  the  Lord, 
I'll  meet  him  somewhere  else,  and  attend  to  him  in 
full." 

So  leaving  his  work  entailed  dismissal,  and  when 
once  more  he  arrived  at  the  Mason's  Arms  (this  time 
with  a  small  portmanteau),  he  was  again  in  his 
previous  condition  of  being  out  of  employ. 

Miss  Dubbs  leaned  across  the  top  oi  the  bar  and 
shook  his  hand  with  her  best  air.  "  I  was  all  of  a 
twitter  to  think  you  wouldn't  be  able  to  get  away. 
It's  Sir  George  who  offers  the  job,  and  he'll  wait  for 
no  man.  '  Bring  your  skipper  up  to  the  scratch  at 
six  o'clock  to-night,'  says  he,  'and  I'll  look  him  over. 
But  if  he  isn't  here  by  then  he  needn't  come,  because  I 
shall  run  up  to  Liverpool  after  that,  and  get  one  of  the 
proper  shipping  people  to  find  me  a  master.'  " 

"  Well,  I'm  here,  miss,  and  my  certificates  are  all 
that  an  owner  can  ask  for.     You  didn't  happen  to 


>■ 


CREMATION  OF  A  PIPE  loi 

hear  what  the  ship  was,  and  where  she  was  for  ?  Not 
that  it  matters.  I'd  command  a  floating  dock  bound 
for  the  North  Pole  —  yes,  and  guarantee  to  take  her 
there,  too,  if  an  owner  would  sign  me  on  for  the  job. 
But  if  you  could  give  me  a  pointer  on  ahead,  it  might 
help  in  negotiations." 

"  The  trouble  is,  I  can't.  Captain.  You  know  that 
Sir  George  is  —  short,  and  brisk,  and  snappy.  They'd 
been  having  a  political  meeting  up  in  the  coffee-room, 
and  he  came  in  here  as  usual  for  a  word  with  pa  — 
with  the  guv'nor,  that  is.  You  know  he's  our  land- 
lord —  he's  landlord  of  half  the  country-side,  for  that 
matter.  Well,  pa  asked  him  about  the  flower  show; 
would  he  be  president  again  this  year?  And  Sir 
George  laughed,  and  said  he  expected  he'd  be  in 
Morocco  about  flower  show  time  if  he  could  find  a 
skipper  for  his  boat.  '  But  skippers,  they  tell  me, 
are  hard  to  get  at  the  moment,'  says  he,  '  just,  I  sup- 
pose, because  I  happen  to  want  one.' 

"  '  Excuse  me.  Sir  George,'  says  I,  '  but  if  that's  all 
your  trouble,  I  can  find  you  a  perfect  captain.' 

"  '  Ah,'  says  he,  '  that  sounds  like  business.  And 
why's  he  out  of  a  billet?     Drink?  ' 

"  *  Steadiest  young  man  I  know,'  says  I. 

"  '  Any  other  cjualifications  ?  '  he  asks. 

"  '  There's  no  captain  can  work  a  ship  safer  or  more 
comfortable,'  I  says;  and  though  I've  never  been  at 
sea  with  you.  Captain,  I'm  sure  that's  right.  And 
then  I  added  something  about  your  skill  in  music.  I 
said  nothing  about  what  you  told  me  about  poetry. 


102      MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

because  I  thought  that  wouldn't  help.  But  the  music 
fetched  him.  *  The  accordion  is  quite  the  finishing 
touch,'  he  says.  '  Send  your  man  along,'  he  says,  '  and 
I'll  interview  him.' 

"  And  that's  the  lot,  Captain.  The  agent  came  and 
fetched  him  then  before  I  could  get  in  another  word, 
and  perhaps  as  well." 

"  Miss,"  said  the  sailor,  "  I  don't  know  how  to 
thank  you  for  what  you've  done." 

"  Then  don't  do  it.  I  suppose  a  lady  may  do  what 
she  likes  for  her  own  particular  friends,  and  I  never 
heard  any  law  as  to  why  she  mayn't  have  men  friends 
as  well  as  the  usual  lady  friends." 

"  You  might  tell  me  who  Sir  George  is." 

"  Why,  bless  me,  yes.  I  thought  you  knew.  He's 
the  big  man  round  here,  and  a  tiptop  good  sort. 
Head  of  everything,  from  the  cricket  club  down  to  the 
county  council ;  member  of  Parliament  for  the  divi- 
sion, and  a  real  popular  landlord,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  he  owns  half  the  country-side.  They  say  he  gets 
his  pound  of  flesh  all  right  in  rents;  but  if  any  one 
meets  with  a  lump  of  hard  luck,  and  can't  pay,  and 
Sir  George  hears  about  it,  it's  always,  '  My  good  man, 
don't  let  your  bit  of  debt  to  me  spoil  your  sleep. 
Wipe  it  off,  and  try  and  do  better  next  half-year.  Tell 
your  missis  I'm  sending  her  down  a  couple  of  brace  of 
pheasants ! '  " 

"  Sounds  a  good  sort." 

"  So  you'd  think.  So  I  do  think.  He's  the  nicest 
great  gentleman  I  know,  and  you'll  find  no  one  in 


CREMATION  OF  A  PIPE  103 

Foston  to  give  him  a  bad  word.  But  there's  one,  they 
say,  can't  get  on  with  him  —  or  else  it's  him  that  can't 
stand  her." 

"  Trouble  with  his  wife?  " 

"  Captain,  I  don't  talk  scandal.  But  this  is  a  busi- 
ness matter,  and  as  I  am  a  business  lady,  and  have  put 
you  on  to  it,  I  think  it's  right  you  should  know.  Her 
ladyship  is  Sir  George's  little  cross;  and  if  she  can't 
get  on  with  a  man  like  that,  my  opinion  of  her  is  that 
she's  no  better  than  she  ought  to  be.  But  there's  no 
getting  over  the  fact  that  she  leads  him  a  dog's  life 
of  it  when  she's  down  here  at  the  Hall ;  and  when  she's 
in  London  by  what  one  reads  in  the  papers,  her  goings- 
on  are  too  rapid  to  be  respectable.  She's  on  the 
Riveera  at  present,  gambling  away  our  rents  at  Monte 
Carlo;  and  if  Sir  George  wants  to  be  safely  off.  on  a 
yachting  trip  by  the  time  she  gets  back  to  England, 
I'm  sure  I'm  not  blaming  him.  And  mark  you.  Cap- 
tain, as  I've  told  you  more  than  once,  my  idea  is  that 
v.'hen  a  man  marries  a  lady  he  should  as  a  rule  stick  to 
her,  Avhether,  in  the  words  of  the  Bible,  she  turns  out 
better  than  he  expected  or  worse  than  he  dared  to 
hope. 

"  But  her  ladyship's  the  limit,  and  if  poor  Sir  George 
chooses  to  take  himself  and  his  purse  out  of  her  reach, 
I'd  be  the  last  to  blame  him.  Oh,  my  word,  here  he 
is!     I  do  hope  he  hasn't  heard  us  talking." 

Sir  George  Chesterman,  as  Mr.  Kettle  saw  him  then, 
was  a  burly,  upstanding,  tired-looking  man  of  five- 
and-forty.     He  wore  baggy,  weather-beaten  country 


I04     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

clothes,  and  had  a  face  browned  and  lined  by  the  wind 
and  the  sun.  He  had  a  retriever  and  a  fat  spaniel 
at  his  heels,  and  the  easy  manner  of  a  man  accustomed 
every  day  to  meet  all  grades  of  the  population. 

"  Well,  Miss  Dubbs,  here  I  am ;  prompt  to  the  hour, 
you  see.  And  so  you've  managed  to  bring  your 
nautical  friend  up  to  the  scratch?"  He  nodded 
pleasantly.  "  You  two  haven't  wasted  much  time 
either." 

"  Yes,  this  is  Captain  Kettle,  Sir  George." 

"  Then  suppose  we  sit  down  and  see  what  we  can 
arrange.  I  understand  that  you've  let  the  sea  look 
after  itself  for  the  last  year  or  so,  Captain,  and  taken 
a  turn  at  civil  engineering?  " 

"  I've  been  on  the  railroad  works  as  timekeeper, 
sir,  a  very  subordinate  position,  for  just  five  months. 
I  met  with  a  little  misfortune,  sir,  at  sea,  which  I'd 
rather  not  explain  unless  you  press  for  it;  but  it  had 
nothing  to  do  with  my  own  professional  competency, 
and  my  ticket  was  not  dealt  with,  and  indeed  no  in- 
quiry was  held  that  I  ever  heard  about.  There  are 
my  certificates,  sir,  if  you  care  to  look  at  them." 

"  We'll  take  them  as  read  for  the  present.  I'm 
afraid  I  must  speak  in  rather  a  guarded  way  for  the 
time  being.  You  see,  I  don't  know  you,  and,  for  that 
matter,  you  don't  know  me.  Indeed,  to  begin  with,  I 
may  as  well  tell  you  that  this  is  no  ordinary  humdrum 
trip  that  I've  got  in  mind.  It  will  be  a  case  of  sailing 
from  here  in  a  small  steamboat  with  sealed  orders; 
and  from  a  professional  point  of  view,  I  don't  see  that 


CREMATION  OF  A  PIPE  105 

it  can  possibly  lead  up  to  much  in  the  way  of  promo- 
tion after  the  job  is  done." 

"  That  doesn't  sound  very  encouraging,  sir.  You 
see,  I'm  young,  and  I  don't  want  to  get  any  marks  on 
my  ticket." 

"  You'd  be  a  fool  if  you  did.  Moreover,  here's  an- 
other point:  the  business  anyway  will  be  risky,  and 
very  possibly  will  be  highly  dangerous." 

Mr.  Kettle  squared  his  shoulders.  "  You  needn't 
bring  that  into  the  account,  sir,"  he  snapped.  "  As  I 
never  suffered  from  nervousness  as  a  mate,  it  isn't 
likely  I  should  begin  to  shake  at  the  knees  if  you're 
kind  enough  to  promote  me  to  be  skipper.  In  fact," 
he  added  with  a  little  sigh,  "  when  troubles  come  along, 
it's  mostly  like  meat  and  drink  to  me." 

Sir  George  laughed  rather  hardly.  "  I  should  have 
thought  that  under  existing  circumstances  you  wouldn't 
want  too  much  excitement  to  season  your  every-day 
meal.  You  ought  to  hanker  after  a  humdrum,  steady- 
going  job  with  the  maximum  of  screw  and  the  mini- 
mum of  risk." 

"  I  know  I  should,  sir,  I  know  I  should.  But  I 
can't  help  the  way  I'm  built,  however  much  I  may 
regret  it.     Is  the  business  gun-running?  " 

"  I  hadn't  thought  of  that,  though  we  might  add  it 
as  a  side  issue.  No,  in  one  word,  Captain,  it's 
salvage.  The  story's  a  bit  of  an  unlikely  one,  though 
I've  gathered  it  happens  with  regularity  at  least  twice 
or  thrice  a  year.  A  steamer  was  coming  home  from 
a  foreign  port,  and  cargo  shifted.     As  a  point  of  fact, 


io6     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

she  was  loaded  with  copper  matte  —  copper  concen- 
trates, if  you  Hke  it  better  —  worth  some  thirty-five 
pounds  a  ton,  and  she'd  four  thousand  three  hundred 
tons'  dead-weight  of  it  on  board.  If  you  work  that 
out,  you  get  into  big  figures  in  pounds  sterhng." 

"  One  hundred  fifty  thousand,  five  hundred  pounds," 
said  Miss  Dubbs,  who  by  reason  of  her  exacting  pro- 
fession was  of  necessity  a  lightning  calculator. 

"  Good.  And  then  you  must  add  on  anything  be- 
tween twenty  and  sixty  thousand  pounds  for  the 
steamer,  according  to  the  condition  in  which  one  finds 
her.  Well,  Captain,  she's  been  reported  a  total  loss, 
and  Lloyd's  have  paid  on  her  as  such.  The  whole  tale 
is  quite  understandable,  I'm  told." 

"  Quite.  A  breeze  came  on  —  a  breeze  abeam, 
and  the  old  man  daren't  put  her  nose  on  to  it  because 
the  chief  told  him  that  if  she  raced  badly,  either  her 
engines  would  tie  themselves  up  in  knots,  or  else  she'd 
drop  her  propeller  overboard.  So  he  kept  her  plug- 
ging along  her  course,  and  she  rolled  so  badly  that 
presently  the  cargo  began  to  shift.  That  gave  her  a 
list  to  leeward,  and  every  sea  that  hit  her  on  the  tall 
side  sent  more  cargo  sagging  over,  and  the  list  got 
worse.  The  cargo  being  the  copper  ore  you  speak 
about,  sir,  they  probably  got  hands  below  to  do  a  bit 
of  trimming,  and  when  she  rolled  men  got  thrown 
down  to  leeward,  and  the  heavy  lumps  fell  in  cascades 
down  on  top  of  them  till  most  of  them  were  crushed 
into  a  kind  of  pink  beef  jelly,  and  the  rest  cleared  out 


CREMATION  OF  A  PIPE  107 

on  decic,  and  neither  guns  nor  belaying-pins  could 
drive  them  below  again." 

"  You  seem  to  know  the  symptoms,  Captain." 

"  You  see,  sir,  I  was  shipmaster  with  a  shifted  cargo 
myself  once.     Coal  it  was." 

"Well?" 

"  Oh,  we  got  a  tarpaulin  on  her  aft,  and  that  blew 
her  stern  round  till  she'd  answer  to  the  helm  and  show 
her  other  side  to  the  sea,  and  that  trimmed  her  again. 
Lord,  but  when  that  coal  did  cascade  across,  I  thought 
it  would  go  slap  through  her  rotten  old  plates  into 
the  North  Sea." 

"Well,  and  what  about  the  threatened  ore  boat?" 

"  Oh,  they  didn't  know  enough  to  get  her  round, 
or  tried  and  couldn't  do  it,  or  the  old  coffee-mill  broke 
down  and  she  lost  her  way  and  kept  getting  badly 
swept,  or  a  dozen  other  things  might  have  happened. 
But,  anyway,  the  crew  decided  they  hadn't  sufficient 
interest  on  board  to  stay  there  and  get  drowned,  and 
they  made  off  in  the  boats,  and  whether  the  after- 
guard were  weak-backed  enough  to  go  with  them,  you 
know,  sir,  better  than  I  do." 

"  I'm  afraid  I  can't  tell  you.  But  I  gather  that  the 
tale  fell  out  much  as  you  have  told  it,  only  the  boats 
got  swamped,  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  only  one  man  es- 
caped drowning.  He,  as  it  happened,  poor  chap,  was 
a  cousin  of  mine,  who'd  kicked  rather  badly  over  the 
traces  and  had  found  it  convenient  to  disappear. 
He  was  drifting  homeward  again,   it  seems,  in  this 


io8     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

boat's  stoke-hold,  and  was  very  pleased  with  himself, 
because  after  hammering  about  the  seas  for  three  years 
as  a  trimmer,  he  had  at  last  been  promoted  to  being 
a  full-blown  fireman.  You  see,  he'd  once  been  a  doc- 
tor with  a  very  good  practice,  and  just  made  the  one 
mistake  and  —  well,  that  won't  interest  you.  Any- 
way, there  he  was.  He  got  picked  up  by  a  South 
American  beef  boat  when  it  was  too  late  to  be  of  use 
to  him.  He  knew  himself  to  be  dying,  and  he'd  seen 
every  other  man  jack  of  his  boat's  crew  go  under  be- 
fore the  ship  turned  up  which  found  him. 

"  But  here's  the  rum  part  of  the  tale.  Before  he 
died  he  wrote  me  a  letter,  which  in  due  time  was  de- 
livered. He  said  he  wrote  to  me  because  in  the  past 
I'd  been  rather  decent  to  him  over  a  certain  matter, 
and  in  return  he  wanted  to  put  me  in  possession  of  a 
neat  little  fortune.  He  guessed  (I  suppose  with  a 
sick  man's  canny  knowledge  of  such  things)  that  his 
own  steamer  would  be  given  up  as  a  total  loss,  and  he 
wrote  to  say  that,  barring  the  loss  of  boats  and  some 
superstructure,  she  was  as  sound  as  a  bell,  and  her 
cargo  not  a  penny  the  worse  for  its  churning." 

"  H'm,"  said  Mr.  Kettle,  "  if  your  trip  is  to  go 
hunting  for  an  ore-laden  derelict,  sir,  that's  roaming 
about  the  seas  as  wind  and  currents  direct,  of  course 
you  may  find  her,  if  you  can  get  in  somewhere  to 
coal  often  enough,  and  your  patience  holds  out;  or 
again  you  may  not." 

"  Wait  a  bit.  Captain.     You  have  only  heard  Chap- 


CREMATION  OF  A  PIPE  109 

ter  One  of  the  tale.  Chapter  Two  tells  how  she  got 
embayed  snugly  behind  certain  islands  that  fringe  a 
savage  coast." 

"  Ah,"  said  Mr.  Kettle,  "  I  don't  wish  to  speak  dis- 
respectfully about  any  gentleman  that  was  a  cousin 
of  yours,  sir,  but  are  you  sure,  sir,  that  this  one  wasn't 
seeing  the  visions  and  the  geography  of  New  Jeru- 
salem before  he  finally  pegged  out?  " 

"Of  course,  there  is  that  reading.  But  at  any  rate, 
his  yarn  is  circumstantial.  Listen,  and  tell  me  if 
there's  any  bad  technical  breaks.  He  says  that  when 
they  put  off  there  was  a  very  heavy  sea  running,  and 
the  boat,  which  had  been  badly  stove  in  the  lowering, 
soon  swamped.  The  air  chambers  kept  her  afloat, 
but  before  daybreak  the  sharks  and  the  seas  had  eased 
her  of  half  her  people.  Sometimes  she  floated  right 
way  upward,  sometimes  wrong,  and  on  the  whole 
they  had  (he  says)  a  roughish  trip  of  it.  The  amaz- 
ing part  of  it  was  that  in  the  morning  there  was  the 
steamer,  righted,  and  apparently  little  the  worse  for 
her  bucketing,  and  only  a  mile  away  from  them;  and 
beyond  again  was  the  shore  of  Africa,  with  a  fine  line 
of  noisy  spouting  reefs  guarding  it. 

"  The  steamer  and  the  swamped  boat  were  in  tow 
of  a  good  brisk  current,  but  the  steamer  was  highest 
out  of  the  water,  and,  when  the  wind  got  her,  drifted 
fastest.  She  got  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  reefs,  and 
at  last  among  them,  and  my  poor  old  cousin  watched 
to  see  her  strike  and  go  smash.     But  in  some  way  she 


no     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

navigated  clear  of  the  rocks,  though  he  said  there  was 
a  regular  graveyard  of  them,  and  he  clearly  saw  her 
afloat  on  the  smooth  water  inside. 

"  Then  after  that  the  tide  changed,  cr  the  current 
changed  —  you  know  what  twiddly  things  currents 
are,  Captain  —  and  the  swamped  life-boat  got  drawn 
out  seaward  again,  and  poor  Fred  seems  to  have  had 
a  pretty  hazy  notion  of  what  happened  between  then 
and  the  time  when  the  beef  boat  picked  him  up.  It 
was  all  a  muddle  of  sun,  and  birds,  and  thirst,  and 
fellows  dying,  and  more  birds  trying  to  pick  his  eyes 
out,  and  trouble  about  some  lady  patients  coming  to 
see  him  in  his  consulting  room  in  Harley  Street  at 
home. 

''And  when  at  last  he  was  hauled  in  oui  of  the  wet 
he'd  a  dose  of  angina  pectoris,  which  as  he  said  gave 
him  due  warning,  and  he'd  just  time  to  write  this 
letter  I  told  you  of  before  another  attack  came  along 
and  (as  the  Captain  of  the  Argentina  wrote  to  me) 
finished  him  off.  So  there's  the  tale,  and  I  want  to 
know  what  you  think  of  it." 

"  I  don't  ask  you  to  tell  me  more  than  you  wish, 
sir,  but  the  first  thing  I  want  to  point  out  is  that  there 
is  a  lot  of  coast-line  to  Africa.  Did  he  mark  off  a 
likely  bit?" 

"  He  did." 

"And  is  it  likely  to  be  disturbed?  You  said,  if 
you  remember,  it  was  savage." 

"  I  should  say  that  local  effort  has  looted  anything 
it  fancied  off  the  derelict,  but  if  you  come  to  add  that 


CREMATION  OF  A  PIPE  iii 

up  it  probably  won't  amount  to  more  than  a  few  hun- 
dred pounds'  worth.  Tramp  steamers  of  the  brand 
that  are  chartered  to  carry  ore  are  not  usually  fitted 
out  with  guns  and  swords  and  other  tackle  that  would 
attract  the  savage  eye.  As  for  the  copper  matte,  I 
can  imagine  their  cursing  when  they  got  the  hatches 
off  and  went  down  to  have  a  look  at  it." 

"  And  what  about  any  other  boat  running  in  there, 
and  sighting  her,  and  towing  her  off,  and  claiming 
salvage,  so  that  when  you  got  there  you  would  find 
the  harbor  bare  ?  " 

"If  she  had  been  found,  Lloyd's  would  have  been 
notified.  They  haven't,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I 
have  bought  up  all  claims.  If  I  told  you  the  spot  you 
would  recognize  at  once  that  it  is  clear  of  all  steam 
lanes,  and  there  is  not  the  smallest  possibility  of  any 
craft  blundering  into  that  part  of  the  coast  and  find- 
ing her." 

"  Then,  sir,  it  seems  to  me  you've  got  a  cinch,  and 
if  you'll  employ  me  as  master  of  your  salvage  steamer, 
I'd  be  proud  to  undertake  the  business  for  you." 

Sir  George  pulled  rather  a  rueful  face.  "  Do  you 
believe  in  luck,  Captain  ?  " 

"  I  believe  that  every  man  makes  for  himself  the 
luck  he  deserves." 

"  That  makes  it  rather  worse,  because  I  am  free  to 
own  up  to  you  that  luck  at  present  seems  to  have  de- 
serted me  entirely,  and  as  I'm  going  with  this  expedi- 
tion myself  for  —  well,  for  reasons  —  I  should  say 
the  odds  are  I  shall  act  as  Jonah  and  wreck  it." 


112     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  Sir,"  said  Captain  Kettle  warmly,  "  don't  you  be- 
lieve it  for  one  instant.  If  you  guarantee  that  the 
steamer's  there  and  afloat,  I'll  guarantee  to  you,  given 
a  modest  equipment,  that  I'll  find  her  and  bring  her 
home.  Yes,  sir,  the  fact  of  your  luck  being  down, 
and  the  trifle  that  half  the  tribes  in  Africa  are  show- 
ing their  teeth  and  trying  to  keep  her  as  their  private 
yacht,  won't  stop  me.  Of  course,  this  is  always  sup- 
posing you  give  me  the  job." 

The  big  man's  tired  face  lighted  up  with  a  smile. 
He  had  a  very  taking  smile.  "  After  the  enthusiasm 
you  have  shown  I  don't  see  that  I  have  any  choice. 
So  if  in  the  teeth  of  all  I've  told  you,  you'll  be  good 
enough  to  accept  the  billet,  it's  yours  to  have.  As 
regards  pay,  I  don't  know  much  about  these  matters, 
and  I  can't  afford  to  be  extravagant,  but  I'll  give  you 
the  standard  rate  of  salary  if  you  will  let  me  know 
what  that  is,  and  Til  also  arrange  for  you  to  have  a 
slice  of  the  plunder  if  we  manage  to  do  our  salvaging 
successfully.  I  must  go  now,  but  if  you'll  meet  me 
at  the  station  at  9:15  to-morrow  we'll  run  into  Liver- 
pool, and  I'll  get  your  advice  on  chartering  a  ship. 
So  good  night  for  the  present,  and  good  night  to  you 
also.  Miss  Dubbs." 

"Well,"  said  the  barmaid  presently,  "if  that  isn't 
a  gentleman,  every  inch  of  him,  may  I  never  wear  a 
diamond  ring.  I  can  see  it's  been  a  strain  to  you,  all 
this  talk.  Captain,  but  you  take  it  from  me,  you'll  soon 
get  used  to  him.  Now  you  come  into  the  Snug  and 
smoke  a  cjuiet  pipe." 


CREMATION  OF  A  PIPE  113 

"  Miss,"  said  the  little  sailor,  "  I'm  going  to  show 
you  something."  He  took  an  old,  hard-seasoned, 
highly-polished  brier  pipe  from  his  pocket  and  looked 
at  it  thoughtfully.  "Pipes,"  said  he,  "are  all  right 
for  mates,  and  this  one's  been  a  very  firm  friend  to 
me.  But  I'm  a  skipper  now,  and  I  must  drop  junior 
ofificers'  ways.  I've  got  to  keep  up  the  dignity  of  my 
position,  and  that  means  I've  got  to  smoke  cigars  from 
now  on." 

With  the  poker  he  carefully  skimmed  away  the 
black  coals  from  the  top  of  the  fire  and  exposed  a 
glowing  cavern  of  red,  and  into  this  carefully  and 
reverently  he  dropped  the  cherished  pipe.  It  sim- 
mered for  a  moment  or  two,  and  then  flame  leaped 
from  it.  Captain  Kettle  found  occasion  to  blow  his 
nose  with  unnecessary  violence,  but  Miss  Dubbs,  who 
was  standing  at  his  side,  watching  the  cremation, 
patted  his  arm  reassuringly. 

"  You  were  quite  right,  dear,"  said  Miss  Dubbs. 
"  Now  that  you  are  a  real  captain,  you  must  always 
remember  to  keep  up  your  position." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MR.    McTODD    GRACIOUSLY   DECIDES 

'TT^HERE  was,  as  far  as  I  can  gather,  no  actual  pro- 
•*■  posal.  They  never  even  got  to  Christian  names, 
and  only  in  moments  of  forget  fulness  slipped  out 
"  dear ".  It  was  always  "  Captain ",  or  "  Miss 
Dubbs  ",  from  one  to  the  other,  but  the  fact  of  their 
engagement  was  public  property,  and  the  little  land- 
lord in  his  deepest  voice  had  pronounced  benediction, 
and  the  audience  in  the  Snug  had  enthusiastically 
drunk  their  healths  separately  and  in  combination. 

Not  till  the  day  after  the  bargain  had  been  struck, 
and  in  a  ship-broker's  office  in  Liverpool,  did  Captain 
Kettle  discover  that  Sir  George  was  Sir  George  Ches- 
terman,  and  though  the  coincidence  of  names  struck 
him  as  peculiar,  he  did  not  somehow  associate  him 
with  the  Miss  Violet  Chesterman  of  the  Rhein  and  the 
Norman  Tozvers.  They  had  not  a  feature  in  com- 
mon, and,  for  that  matter,  as  far  as  he  could  trace, 
not  a  taste  in  common.  Miss  Violet,  according  to  her 
own  account,  was  society  woman  to  the  tips  of  her 
shoes;  Sir  George  loved  the  country  and  country  pur- 
suits, and  hated  the  town  and  all  its  peoples. 

To  make  assurance  doubly  sure  he  had  asked  the 
landlord  of  the  Mason's  Arms  as  to  what  other  mem- 

114 


MR.  McTODD  GRACIOUSLY  DECIDES     115 

bers  of  the  family  ever  came  to  the  Hall  except  Lady 
Chesterman,  and  was  promptly  told  "  None."  Sir 
George  and  his  wife  were  a  lonely  couple  with  neither 
chick  nor  relative  to  brighten  them,  "  which  probably 
accounts,"  boomed  the  host  in  his  moving  whisper, 
"  for  her  ladyship's  tantrums.  As  I've  often  said  to 
ma,  if  you've  no  children  of  your  own,  the  best  way 
to  avoid  dullness  is  to  get  other  people  round  you,  and 
that's  why  we  went  into  the  public  line." 

The  steamer  of  Sir  George's  choice  was  finally  run 
to  earth  —  or  to  be  more  precise,  to  moorings  —  in 
the  Tyne,  opposite  the  Dolly  Stairs,  and  Captain  Ket- 
tle, after  an  impressive  and  respectful  farewell  to  his 
fiancee,  took  train  for  South  Shields,  and  engaged 
there  a  select  but  inexpensive  lodging. 

He  traveled  down  in  mufti  because  his  mate's  uni- 
forms were  having  that  extra  band  of  gold  lace  added 
to  the  cuff  which  is  the  mercantile  marine  shipmaster's 
special  ensign,  but  he  carried  the  marks  of  the  sea  and 
his  grade  in  the  cock  of  his  red  torpedo  beard,  and 
in  every  line  of  his  spruce  figure,  and  more  than  one 
fellow-mariner  inspected  him  with  a  curious  stare  as 
if  to  recall  on  which  of  the  many  seas  they  had  met. 
It  remained  for  the  guard  of  the  train  at  Kirkby 
Stephen  to  put  the  seal  on  this  general  recognition. 

"  Captain,"  said  the  guard,  opening  the  door  of  Ket- 
tle's compartment  and  touching  his  hat,  "  there's  a 
party  in  the  rear  coach  that'll  be  handed  over  to  the 
police  when  we  get  to  Newcastle  if  some  one  don't 
take  charge  of  him." 


ii6     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 


tt 


Well  ?  "  said  Kettle,  tickled  at  the  title  but  feeling 
the  sedateness  that  was  due  to  his  rank. 

"  He  say's  he's  a  ship's  officer,  sir.  It  would  be 
a  pity  for  him  to  get  into  trouble  if  it  could  be 
avoided." 

"  What's  the  trouble  ?     Is  he  drunk  ?  " 

"  He's  that,  sir,  and  Scotch,  and  he's  preaching  a 
lecture  to  the  other  passengers  in  his  compartment  on 
the  peculiarities  of  the  English  nose,  as  illustrated  by 
themselves,  and  won't  let  them  read  their  papers.  It 
would  be  a  charity.  Captain,  if  you  could  do  some- 
thing, only  " —  the  guard  looked  pointedly  at  his  watch 
— "  only  you'll  have  to  be  quick  about  it." 

"  I'll  go-look-see,"  said  Captain  Kettle,  and  jumped 
briskly  out  on  to  the  platform. 

The  noise  of  argument  came  billowing  out  of  a  car- 
riage window,  and  Kettle  made  for  it,  and  put  in  his 
head. 

"  Gosh !  "  said  a  disheveled  man  inside,  "  it's  the 
pirate.  Mr.  Mate,  Mr.  Picaroon,  I've  mislaid  your 
name,  but  you're  the  very  fellow  I've  come  back  to 
England  to  see.     Ye'll  ken  I  promised  ye  a  yarn  — " 

"  I  know  you  did,  and  that's  what  I've  come  for, 
but  I  don't  want  to  share  it.  Come  along  forward. 
I've  got  a  compartment  to  myself  there." 

"  And  yon's  a  very  wise  obsairve.  The  yarn's  full 
of  humor,  an'  these  loons  here  wad  no'  open  their 
lips  by  way  o'  smile,  though  Nestor  swore  the  jest 
were  laughable.  Ye  can  tell  their  seriousness  by  the 
cut  o'  their  nebs.     The  quotation,  by  the  way's,  from 


MR.  McTODD  GRACIOUSLY  DECIDES     117 

Shakespeare  or  George  R.  Sims,  but  I  forget  which. 

iYe  see  — " 

"  Come  along,  man,  or  the  train  will  pull  out." 

"  And  the  railroad  company  would  be  the  gainer 
by  half  my  fare.  I'll  no  gratify  them.  Aweel,  ma 
friends,  ye  may  enjoy  your  disgraceful  nebs  in  peace 
—  if  ye  can  —  till  ye  meet  me  next.  Mr.  Mate,  I'll 
take  your  arm,  just  to  show  ma  friendly  feeling 
toward  yersel'." 

Now  to  be  saddled  with  a  talkative  drunken  man 
is  embarrassing  to  any  one;  but  when  you  are  a  sea- 
farer, with  a  good  deal  of  ignorance  of,  and  distrust 
for,  English  shore  ways,  and  when,  moreover,  you  are 
journeying  to  join  your  first  command  as  captain,  the 
situation  approaches  the  tragic.  Captain  Kettle  had 
a  large  experience  of  drunks,  few  men  had  more ;  and 
his  usual  treatment  of  them  might  be  described  as 
drastic  but  curative. 

But  here  he  found  himself  face  to  face  with  the 
very  engineer,  McTodd,  who  had  in  plain  truth  saved 
the  lives  of  himself  and  his  boat's  crew  out  there  in 
the  Sargasso  Sea  (and  incidentally  one  supposes  saved 
the  Norman  Tozvers  and  her  complement),  and  the 
ordinary  treatment  of  tongue,  foot,  and  fist  seemed 
inappropriate.  So  he  listened  to  Mr.  McTodd's  gar- 
rulous tale  of  how  he  sailed  with  the  outraged  RJiein 
into  Tampico;  how  every  officer  on  board  of  her 
"wanted  to  eat"  him,  but  daren't;  how  (as  a  great 
triumph)  he  had  been  called  on  to  translate  the 
Spanish  pilot's  English  into  English  the  eye-glassed 


Ii8     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

German  captain  could  understand,  when  they  drove  in 
between  Tampico  pier  heads;  and  how  the  Germans 
threw  him  into  jail  in  that  city,  and  how  the  British 
consul,  stirred  into  activity  by  his  tongue,  reluctantly 
got  him  out.     It  was  a  great  epic. 

"  And  where  are  you  bound  for  now  ?  " 

"  Man,"  said  McTodd,  "  I'm  out  to  seek  my  for- 
tune. My  father  was  Free  Kirk  meenister  at  Ballin- 
drochiter,  though  there's  many  that's  met  his  son  have 
never  guessed  it,  and  a  fine  education  was  all  the 
capital  he  could  give  me.  The  worrld's  my  oyster,  as 
Alfred  Tennyson  has  neatly  put  the  situation,  and 
here  " —  he  waved  a  discolored  thumb  — "  here  is  my 
knife  wherewith  I  shall  open  it.  Now  you're  looking 
prosperous  yourself.     Maybe  you  know  of  a  billet?" 

Captain  Kettle  was  torn  between  gratitude  and  duty. 
*'  You're  certificated,  of  course?  " 

"  I'd  scorn  to  deceive  you.  But  in  the  academic 
sense  of  the  word,  I'm  not.  I  know  more  of  my  craft 
than  half  the  ducks  that  carry  a  chief's  ticket  will  ever 
learn  all  their  black  lives  through,  but  the  Board  of 
Trade  will  no'  believe  it.  Ye  see  —  in  your  ear  —  at 
times  my  spelling's  phonetic,  and  that's  fair  ruin  in 
an  examination  room." 

"  Well,  that  makes  it  difficult.  I'm  in  want  of  a 
chief  engineer.  But  the  owner,  I'm  sure,  would  insist 
on  his  being  fully  qualified." 

Mr.  McTodd  regarded  his  companion  with  an  of- 
fensive eye.  "  D'ye  you  mean  to  tell  me  some  philan- 
thropist's been  fool  enough  to  put  you  in  command  of 


MR.  McTODD  GRACIOUSLY  DECIDES     119 

a  ship  of  your  own?     Well,  well,  there  was  a  humorist. 
once  said  it  takes  all  sorts  to  make  a  worrld." 

The  newly-made  captain  was  growing  more  and 
more  restive  under  all  this,  and  there  were  moments 
when  his  fingers  itched  to  take  their  accustomed 
course;  but  each  time  with  an  effort  he  called  his  new 
dignity  to  his  aid,  and  gripped  his  teeth  into  the  butt 
of  his  cigar,  and  sat  grimly  non-interferant  in  his 
corner. 

"  And  who  did  you  say  was  your  owner?  " 

"  I  didn't  say.  He  wishes  to  keep  in  the  back- 
ground. Nor  can  I  tell  you  what's  our  real  port  of 
destination.  We  clear  for  Falmouth  and  beyond,  but 
really  we  sail  with  sealed  orders." 

"Oho!  More  piracy  may  I  ask?  That  seems  to 
be  your  taste,  and  I  must  say  you've  a  pretty  knack 
for  it.  For  myself,  I  like  to  keep  my  skirts  clear  of 
this  sort  of  thing,  coming,  as  I've  telled  ye,  from  re- 
spectable stock.  But  for  you,  of  course,  being  with- 
out a  pedigree,  it'll  no'  matter  if  your  inclinations  run 
that  way." 

"  Now  just  you  listen  here,"  said  the  exasperated 
sailor.  "  You've  got  to  the  edge  of  my  patience. 
Give  me  three  more  words  of  your  lip,  and  I'll  throw 
you  out  of  the  window." 

"  Gosh !  "  said  Mr.  McTodd,  "  I'd  love  to  see  you 
try,"  and  made  an  active  spring.  But  Captain  Ket- 
tle's expert  fist  shot  out  and  caught  him  in  mid-air 
accurately  on  the  angle  of  the  jaw,  and  Captain  Ket- 
tle's trained  fingers  thereafter  twisted  his  neck-cloth  till 


I20     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

he  was  three  parts  strangled,  and  then  Mr.  McTodd 
was  violently  thrown  into  a  corner  of  the  carriage, 
so  that  his  head  rattled  against  the  company's  wood- 
work, and  he  was  told  to  stay  there  in  words  that  there 
was  no  possibility  of  misunderstanding. 

"  You  needn't  shout,"  said  the  Scot,  "  and  cause 
inconvenience  to  the  rest  of  the  passengers  in  the  train, 
who,  for  anything  you  know,  may  be  respectable  peo- 
ple. Your  words  were  pairfectly  clear.  If  you  wish 
me  to  sleep,  I'll  do  it  for  the  present.  I've  been  in  the 
sun.  It's  a  thing  that  might  happen  to  anybody ;  I've 
known  even  deacons  of  the  kirk  to  suffer  from  the 
effects  of  the  sun.  So  I  bid  ye  good  night.  We'll 
renew  the  conversation  later." 

Now,  Captain  Kettle  was  by  nature  generous  and 
hospitable,  but  he  recognized  the  limitations  of  his 
new  position.  He  was  under  obligations  to  Mr.  Mc- 
Todd that  it  would  not  be  an  easy  matter  to  repay. 
But  if  he  was  going  to  ship  the  man  as  a  subordinate 
officer  on  his  new  command,  it  would  be  an  unheard- 
of  thing  to  offer  him  hospitality  in  his  own  lodgings 
beforehand.  Also,  he  was  in  very  considerable  doubt 
as  to  whether  it  would  not  be  a  betrayal  of  trust  to 
sign  him  on  at  all.  Of  course,  by  the  ritual  of  the  sea 
service,  as  long  as  a  man  keeps  sober  and  does  his 
work  while  on  duty,  that  is  all  that  is  required  of  him. 
His  shore  morals  and  habits  are  a  matter  of  his  own 
private  concern.  But  would  McTodd  be  reliable  even 
at  sea? 

The  little  sailor  thought  these  matters  through  over 


MR.  McTODD  GRACIOUSLY  DECIDES     121 

two  more  cigars,  and  shook  the  engineer  into  wake- 
fulness when  at  last  the  slow  cross-country  train 
dragged  its  weary  length  into  Newcastle  Station. 

"Man,"  said  Mr.  McTodd,  "I  thank  ye.  I'm 
rested  fine.  Just  in  parenthesis,  I'd  like  to  tell  ye 
that  getting  in  the  sun's  no'  a  general  habit  of  mine — ' 
it's  a  digression.  I  make  no  doubt  (by  your  looks)' 
that  the  same  has  happened  to  yourself,  and  that's  why 
ye  handled  me  so  tenderly.  I  thank  ye  for  that  same. 
I've  no'  been  put  to  sleep  with  such  gentle  care  since 
I  lay  in  ma  mither's  arms.  Let  me  prospect ;  where's 
the  third-class  refreshment  room?  It's  a  habit  with 
me,  which  you'd  do  weel  to  follow^  to  let  first-class 
refreshment  rooms  alone.  They  gie  ye  the  same  sized 
whisky  in  the  first  at  a  greater  price,  and  containing 
less  bite  to  the  cubic  inch,  and  the  company  you  find 
yourself  in  there  is  apt  to  be  above  your  station." 

"  I've  no  time  to  drink  with  you,"  said  Captain  Ket- 
tle savagely.  "  My  train  leaves  in  a  minute.  Will 
you  take  the  loan  of  a  pound?  " 

"  I  thank  ye  for  the  kind  thought,  but  for  the  mo- 
ment I  do  not  need  an  advance.  Ye  see  the  British 
consul  in  Tampico,  guided  by  me,  mulcted  that  Dutch 
skipper  in  good  heavy  damages  for  false  imprison- 
ment, and,  as  I  am  no'  what  you  might  call  a  waste- 
ful body,  I  didn't  spend  it  as  the  consul  had  intended 
on  a  passage  home  to  England.  No,  man;  I  just  got 
a  cast  across  the  Gulf  to  Vera  Cruz,  and  got  sent  home 
to  bonny  Cardiff  from  there  as  a  distressed  British 
seaman." 


122     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  ,Well,  come  to  the  point.     Do  you  want  a  billet?  " 

"  Gosh!  the  generosity  of  these'  great  powerful  men 
who  run  the  empire !  "  Mr.  McTodd  raised  his  eyes 
in  marvel  toward  the  roof  of  Newcastle  Station,  and 
nodded  at  the  dirty  glass.  "  It's  no'  every  kind  of 
post  I'd  take.  For  example,  I'd  refuse  an  arch- 
bishopric, as  they  say,  the  hours  are  too  long;  and 
Parliament  I  never  had  a  taste  for,  and  the  peerage  is 
overcrowded.  But  a  nice  quiet  job  as  a  mayor,  now, 
where  a  cellar  is  keepit  in  the  Town  Hall — " 

"  By  James,  listen!  My  ship's  the  Wangaroo;  she's 
lying  in  the  river  off  the  Dolly  Stairs.  If  you  show 
up  there  to-morrow  morning  at  nine  o'clock,  passably 
sober,  I  will  do  my  best  to  give  you  a  job.  If  you 
arrive  drunk  enough  to  disgrace  me,  I'll  throw  you 
into  the  river.     Good  night !  " 

Mr.  McTodd  put  his  hands  deep  into  his  jacket 
pockets,  tilted  the  clay  pipe  between  his  teeth  till  it 
assumed  a  meditative  cock,  and  gazed  on  the  rapidly 
retreating  back  of  his  companion. 

"  Vara  full  of  the  importance  of  his  braw  new 
captain's  ticket  is  yon.  It's  a  vara  humorous  situa- 
tion, come  to  think  of  it.  Weel,  I've  put  a  fine  edge 
on  to  his  temper,  which  as  like  as  not  some  compara- 
tive stranger  will  benefit  by  later  on.  Oh,  vara  hu- 
morous! Captain  Kettle,  indeed,  is  he?  Well,  I'll 
sail  with  him,  if  I  have  to  sign  on  as  donkey-man. 
There'll  be  no  monotony  with  Kettle  as  Old  Man. 
Gosh !  He's  the  sort  that  would  find  trouble  in  a  ruri- 
decanal  meeting." 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    STEWARDESS    SIGNS 

THE  Wangaroo  was  a  steamboat  with  a  past. 
At  her  birth  she  had  been  designed  by  a  naval 
architect  who  was  admittedly  a  genius,  but  who  had 
the  knack  of  never  building  a  boat  that  paid.  Her 
registered  tonnage  was  seven  hundred  fifty,  and  her 
horse-power  officially  one  hundred  eighty-five.  Her 
engines  were  early  triple  expansions  of  a  pattern  and 
design  that  were  never  repeated,  and  her  pumps  were 
a  perpetual  conundrum  to  the  unfortunates  whose 
duty  it  was  to  overlook  their  eccentricities.  She  had 
a  double  bottom  of  such  size  that  it  seriously  ate  into 
her  hold  space,  and  her  lines  were  such  as  to  give  her 
the  minimum  of  cargo  capacity  with  a  maximum  of 
water  friction. 

Exasperated  owners  had  from  time  to  time  so  al- 
tered the  plan  of  her  weights  that  her  metacenter  had 
crept  up  inches  at  a  time  till  she  had  grown  to  be 
alarmingly  crank;  and,  similarly,  through  other  inter- 
ference with  her  frames,  she  was  by  no  means  as  stiff 
as  could  have  been  desired.  In  moments  of  stress,  it 
was  held  that  she  could  roll  three  several  ways  at  the 
same  time. 

She  was  built  of  iron  —  not  steel  —  and  though  her 

123 


124     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

plates  were  comparatively  thick,  they  were  heavily  cor- 
roded, and  as  incidentally  she  had  bumped  over  sand- 
bars and  otherwise  been  aground  far  more  times  than 
a  respectable  boat  ought  to  own  to,  she  had  sheared  the 
rivets  of  a  good  many  of  her  plates,  and  the  concrete 
with  which  they  had  been  replaced  was  hardly  an 
efficient  substitute. 

In  outward  appearance  she  was  sawn-off,  stubby, 
and  clumsy-looking.  Her  smoke-stack  was  fat  and 
short,  and  she  carried  her  standard  compass  on  the 
top  of  a  long  pole.  When  she  started  life  raw  from 
the  builders'  slips  she  had  yards  crossed  on  both  of 
her  tall  masts,  but  as  the  years  went  on  and  fashions 
changed,  she  shed  these,  and  she  steams  into  this 
chronicle  carrying  the  rig  of  a  fore-and-aft  schooner. 

Mr.  McTodd,  after  a  long  study  of  her  beauties, 
owned  that  he  had  seen  her  counterpart  once  before, 
and  on  being  asked  by  his  captain  to  name  the  locality, 
said  it  was  on  a  cheap  photographer's  back  cloth  in 
Manchester.  "  But  I  never  knew  that  was  a  picture 
of  a  real  ship  before  I  saw  this  old  girl,"  said  McTodd. 
"  I  thought  it  was  a  land  artist's  imagination." 

Her  history  was  hard  to  get  hold  of,  but  I  have  been 
at  pains  to  rake  up  most  of  it.  I  will  not  repeat  in 
detail  here,  because  it  implicates  many  worthy  com- 
mercial men  who  have  prospered  since  they  got  rid  of 
her;  but  she  seems  to  have  had  no  fewer  than  twelve 
owners  before  she  came  into  the  hands  of  the  mer- 
chant —  he  was  really  a  ship-breaker  —  from  whom 


THE  STEWARDESS  SIGNS  125 

Sir  George   Chesterman   chartered  her,   and  to  have 
changed  her  name  no  fewer  than  nine  times. 

I  wonder  how  many  people  will  recognize  her  as 
the  Vestis,  the  Polydorus,  the  R.  K.  Williams,  or  the 
Sosha  Mam?  (She  turned  turtle,  by  the  way,  when 
she  was  under  that  Eastern  flag,  drowned  her  crew, 
and  was  salvaged  by  a  Japanese  sponge  boat,  after 
her  water  ballast  had  righted  her.)  She  was  also  in 
her  day  the  Cormorant,  the  Golondrina,  and  the 
Devastation,  which  last  was  when  she  was  supposed 
to  be  a  Venezuelan  man-of-war,  or  rebel  filibuster, 
whichever  side  of  local  hostilities  you  judge  her  from. 
Her  other  two  aliases  I  shall  keep  to  myself,  as  they 
suggests  items  of  history  which  are  better  forgotten. 

Finally,  when  Captain  Kettle  took  her  over,  she  was 
noted  for  being  crank  in  a  seaway,  for  carrying  the 
minimum  of  cargo  her  tonnage  demanded,  for  being 
a  coal-eater  of  the  deepest  dye,  and  for  taking  long 
sheers  to  starboard  when  she  was  that  way  out,  from 
which  no  amount  of  helm  could  wean  her.  She  was, 
all  the  experts  declare,  the  most  undesirable  seven- 
hundred-fifty-ton  steamboat  at  that  period  afloat  in  any 
of  the  seas,  and  Captain  Kettle  who,  be  it  thoroughly 
understood,  had  known  better  things  —  loved  her. 

Captain  Owen  Kettle,  on  his  voyage  from  the  Tyne 
to  Grand  Canary,  was  the  busiest  man  in  all  his  wide 
profession.  He  wore  his  mate  to  the  bone,  and  he 
worked  his  heavy  crew  almost  to  mutiny,  but  by  the 
time  the  disreputable  old  wreck  which  had  left  the 


126     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

Northern  river  had  waddled  her  way  down  to  the 
Islands,  she  had  a  look  of  meretricious  smartness 
about  her  such  as  she  had  probably  never  worn  before 
in  all  her  disreputable  career. 

Her  paint  was  new,  and  her  bright  work  glittered ; 
her  rigging  was  set  up  till  it  was  as  taut  as  bar-iron; 
her  stanchions  were  straightened,  and  her  dingy  funnel 
was  painted  yellow  with  a  jaunty  stripe  of  green. 
And  Mr.  McTodd,  the  second  engineer,  working  be- 
low among  the  ruins  of  her  machinery,  took  up  bear- 
ings and  did  other  repairs  while  she  was  under  way 
with  a  recklessness  that  can  not  be  too  severely 
spoken  about. 

"  One  hundred  and  ninety- four  miles,  sir,  since 
noon  yesterday,"  said  Captain  Kettle  coming  from  the 
chart  house  after  w^orking  out  his  day's  run.  "  That 
averages  eight-point-one  knots  an  hour.  We're 
whacking  her  up  a  bit,  and  I  shouldn't  wonder  that  if 
the  wind  gets  a  bit  more  aft  and  we  can  give  her  the 
gaff  topsails  I've  had  made  out  of  those  spare  awnings, 
she  may  log  as  much  as  eight-point-two  or  two-five. 
She's  a  famous  old  girl  when  she  gets  decent  treat- 
ment." 

"  You'll  make  the  Cunard  people  green  with  envy 
if  this  leaks  out,"  said  Sir  George.     "  Have  a  cigar?  " 

"  We  should  bring-to  for  the  Las  Palmas  health 
boat  at  three-twenty  to-morrow,  and  that's  allowing 
thirty-five  minutes  for  retardation  owing  to  a  slightly 
heavier  sea  which  I  expect  to  get  up  when  we  run 
farther  into  the  trade." 


THE  STEWARDESS  SIGNS  127 

"  As  an  experienced  passenger,  let  me  give  you  a 
tip,  Skipper.  Don't  show  the  machinery  of  your 
calculations.  We  shore  folk  prefer  plain  miracles. 
There  will  be  mails  in  Grand  Canary  which  left  Eng- 
land a  week  after  we  started.  I  suppose  you  couldn't 
cut  the  islands  out  of  the  program?  " 

"  Not  well,  sir.  We've  burned  a  lot  of  coal  getting 
here.  And,  if  there's  much  work  to  be  done  on  the 
African  coast,  I'll  like  to  be  rebunkered  to  our  full 
capacity.  We  shan't  be  able  to  do  very  much  with 
sail.  The  trades  will  be  a  bit  too  heavy  for  the  old 
girl,  flying  light  as  she  is,  at  this  time  of  year.  But 
don't  you  worry  about  the  coaling.  Sir  George.  You 
take  a  run  up  to  the  Monte  while  we're  getting  the 
stuff  on  board,  and  I'll  have  decks  holystoned  down 
as  white  as  a  table-cloth  again  by  the  time  you're  back. 
Though,  of  course,  if  it  was  cables  you  were  thinking 
of—" 

The  big  man  shook  a  weary  head.  "  I  wasn't 
bothering  about  either  coal  or  cables  as  it  happened. 
Fact  is,  a  friend  of  mine  stated  an  intention  of  joining 
me  down  here,  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  I  don't  want  to 
be  bothered.  I'm  not  feeling  hospitable.  You  and 
I  get  along  very  decently  together,  Skipper,  and  a  third 
might  very  easily  upset  the  balance.  If  the  worst 
comes  to  the  worst,  I  have  made  arrangements  that 
the  —  er  —  intruder  shall  be  looked  after,  so  you 
needn't  worry  your  head  about  that.  But  I  most 
piously  hope  that  one  of  this  excellent  person's  usual 
changes  of  plan  will  take  place,  and  we  shall  find  our- 


128     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

selves  undisturbed.  I'm  going  to  have  a  cocktail. 
Will  you  join  me  ?  " 

"  Not  at  sea,  sir.  If  you'll  excuse  me  I'll  go  and 
give  the  mate  a  bit  of  a  brisk-up.  That  man's  not 
served  with  me  long  enough  even  yet  to  learn  my  ways. 
He's  letting  those  hands  mutter  while  they  paint." 

Sir  George  Chesterman  turned  his  tired  eyes  to  the 
sea,  and  watched  the  fleets  of  pink-sailed  Portuguese 
men-of-war  that  cruised  placidly  over  the  dark  blue 
swells  alongside.  "  I  wonder,"  said  he  to  himself, 
"what  sort  of  a  time  a  nautilus  has  of  it?  Seems  a 
nice  easy  life.  No  cables,  or  party  whips  writing  un- 
pleasant letters,  or  wives  with  a  taste  for  everything 
you  happen  to  dislike,  or  —  Pah !  — •  what  a  sickly- 
minded  ass  I  am.  The  odds  are  they  have  the  whole 
lot  —  especially  the  cables.  There  must  be  rum  cus- 
toms and  inventions  among  these  navigating  shell- 
fish. Gad,  I  believe  if  I'd  the  chance  of  a  swap  I'd 
risk  it.  The  more  I  think  back  at  England,  home  and 
beauty,  the  more  sick  I  seem  to  be  of  the  whole  lot 
of  it." 

The  big  retriever,  scenting  trouble,  muzzled  a  sym- 
pathetic wet  nose  into  his  master's  hand. 

He  drank  the  cocktail  which  the  steward  brought 
him,  and  laughed  at  a  new  idea.  "  Gad,  it  would  be 
a  great  joke  to  diddle  her,  if  she  does  turn  up,  and 
leave  her  to  cool  her  heels  among  the  Liverpool  week- 
end-trippers at  Las  Palmas.  I've  a  monstrous  great 
mind  to  do  it.  Ah,  there's  the  luncheon  bell!  Skip- 
per, half  a  moment!" 


THE  STEWARDESS  SIGNS  129 

"Sir?" 

"  I  say,  couldn't  you  put  in  at  Lanzerote  or  one  of 
these  other  islands,  and  do  your  coaling  there?  " 

*'  It  would  be  a  long  slow  job.  You  see  Lanzerote 
has  no  harbors,  only  open  roadsteads,  and  as  likely 
as  not  we'd  have  to  hang  there  rolling  to  our  anchors 
for  a  good  fortnight  before  we  could  arrange  with 
these  manana  Spaniards  to  find  a  bottom  which  would 
bring  the  coal  across  from  Grand  Canary.  And  then, 
you  see,  you'd  be  a  fortnight's  grub  and  water  to  the 
bad  which  would  have  to  be  replaced,  not  to  mention 
a  fortnight  on  your  charter  and  insurance,  and  a 
fortnight's  wages,  which  would  all  be  to  the  bad  any- 
way.    But  I  know  what  you're  thinking  of." 

"Oh,  do  you?" 

"  Yes,  sir.  It's  those  cases  of  rifles  and  the  am- 
munition boxes  in  number  two  hold." 

"  I'm  afraid  you're  wrong.  I  hadn't  given  them  a 
thought.     But  what's  the  point?  " 

"  Well,  of  course,  in  spite  of  promises,  some  one  at 
the  English  end  may  have  blown  the  gaff  and  told  the 
customs  at  Las  Palmas." 

"Well?" 

"If  somebody  definitely  accuses  us  of  attempting 
to  import  arms  of  precision  into  Africa,  against  inter- 
national law,  they'll  try  and  stop  us.  By  James,  I 
should  like  to  see  them  do  it ! " 

The  tired  eyes  brightened.  "  Why,  would  you 
kick?" 

"  Yes,  sir,  I'd  kick  good  and  hard,  and  I'd  take  the 


130     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

old  girl  out  of  their  harbor  in  spite  of  all  the  teeth  they; 
could  show." 

"  That  sounds  interesting.  But  isn't  there  a  f©rt 
or  something?  " 

"  I  believe  they've  some  guns.  They  were  lying  on 
one  of  the  quays  with  their  tails  wrapped  up  in  pack- 
ing cases  when  I  was  round  there  a  year  ago.  They 
were  going  to  haul  them  on  to  a  hill  at  the  back  of 
the  Catalina,  and  mount  them  —  manana.  I  know, 
because  I  asked.  You'll  see  when  we  get  there  they'll 
still  be  on  the  quay,  all  except  the  packing-cases  which 
some  one  will  have  pinched  for  fire-wood." 

"  But  supposing  somebody  had  invented  an  energetic 
Spaniard,  and  they  have  been  hauled  up  to  the  hill- 
top and  mounted,  and  there  is  a  filled  mazagine  along- 
side, and  they  gave  you  fair  warning  that  if  you  didn't 
stop  they'd  blow  you  into  the  middle  of  next  week, 
what  then?" 

"  I  should  steam  out  and  let  them  see  the  red  duster 
blowing  at  my  poop  staff,  and  I  should  break  out  two 
more  at  my  fore  and  main  trucks,  and  I  should  like  to 
see  the  beastly  dagos  dare  to  fire  on  those.  And  if 
they  did,  by  James,  I'd  let  them  fire  and  be  hanged  to 
them,  but  I  should  be  cock-sure  they  never  could  hit 
me.     And  now,  sir,  if  you  please,  dinner's  cooling." 

"  I  wish,"  thought  Sir  George  wistfully,  "  I  had 
half  this  little  man's  enthusiasm,  though  the  Lord  only 
knows  what  mess  he's  going  to  land  me  into  if  he  has 
only  half  his  own  way." 

Las  Palmas  harbor,  tucked  away  under  the  decayed 


THE  STEWARDESS  SIGNS  131 

volcano  of  the  Isleta,  displayed  the  usual  collection  of 
British  steamers,  Canary  bacalao  schooners,  and 
coal  dust,  and  the  warmth  of  the  sun  overhead  was 
cooled  by  a  racing  trade-wind,  which  carried  with  it 
a  strong  scour  of  African  sand.  On  the  quays  and 
in  the  coal  lighters  Spanish  cargadores  shouted  music- 
ally, but  did  little  work  until  they  were  urged  thereto 
by  profane  British  mates,  and  those  units  of  the  army 
of  Spain  which  happened  to  be  off  duty  appeared  to  be 
dangling  their  cotton-trousered  legs  over  the  edges  of 
the  concrete  walls,  and  smoking  interminable  ciga- 
rettes. And  over  the  whole  harbor  water  was  spread 
a  scum  of  coal  dust,  and  an  odor  of  bacalao,  im- 
perfectly cured. 

A  grinning  Parsee  in  an  elaborately  embroidered 
smoking-cap  brought  his  boat  alongside  as  Captain 
Kettle  humored  his  precious  Wangaroo  up  to  the 
mooring  buoy,  and  displayed  Birmingham  Benares 
brass,  Teneriffe  drawn-linen  work,  and  Three  Castles 
cigarettes  to  prospective  buyers,  adding  for  the  benefit 
of  the  ignorant,  "  I  am  your  fellow  countree-man. 
I  sell  you  best  stuff,  cheap-price.  Also  I  have  letter 
from  lady  to  captain." 

"  Lower  away  the  companion-ladder,  Mr.  Smith," 
said  Captain  Kettle  to  a  mariner  beside  him  on  the 
upper  bridge. 

The  little  steamer,  from  her  size,  could  at  the  utmost 
afford  only  two  mates.  But  Kettle  had  picked  from 
the  crew  a  steady  man  who  had  signed  on  as  A.B., 
had  added  ten  shillings  a  month  out  of  his  own  pocket 


132     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

to  his  wages,  and  given  him  brevet  rank  as  third 
mate  from  sheer  dehght  at  liaving  an  aide-de-camp 
at  moments  Hke  these,  when  the  mate  was  on  the 
fore-deck,  and  the  second  mate  on  the  poop,  as  by  sea 
rubric  ordained. 

"If  you  can  get  that  chattering  baboon's  boat  un- 
derneath," continued  Kettle,  "  let  go  your  ladder  by 
the  run  and  stove  him  in.  I'll  let  the  son  of  a  dog 
know  what's  the  tariff  for  bringing  off  letters  to  me 
from  ladies  I  don't  know." 

"  Aye,  aye,  sir,"  said  Smith,  and  ran  briskly  down 
off  the  narrow  bridge,  while  Captain  Kettle  ached 
to  think  that  in  spite  of  all  his  care  and  instructions 
the  Wangaroo  might  have  been  brought  up  more 
smartly  to  her  moorings.  And  then,  with  his  spruce 
uniform  fairly  straining  with  pride,  he  descended  to 
do  the  honors  of  his  own  chart  house  to  the  port 
officials,  and  for  the  first  time  to  write  "  O.  Kettle, 
Master,"  at  the  foot  of  documents. 

There  was  one  unpleasant  interlude.  The  Parsee 
managed  to  make  his  way  on  board,  and  again  prof- 
fered his  "  letter  from  lady "  to  the  new-fledged 
skipper.  Spanish  port  doctor  and  Spanish  port 
captain  grinned  knowingly,  and  Kettle  arose  in  his 
wrath  and  kicked  his  fellow  subject  down  over  the 
side. 

"  Quartermaster,"  said  he,  "  if  that  man  or  any- 
thing else  that's  escaped  out  of  the  monkey  house 
gets  on  board  again  I'll  disrate  you." 

The  advent  of  the  coaling  company's  agent  handi- 


THE  STEWARDESS  SIGNS  133 

capped  his  further  remarks,  and  for  the  next  hour 
Captain  Kettle  was  immersed  in  the  intricacies  of  the 
ship's  business  in  a  foreign  port.  And  then  came 
other  tradespeople  and  touts  innumerable. 

The  entry  of  Miss  Dubbs  was  a  marvel  of  quietness 
and  discretion.  Captain  Kettle  gulped  and  collected 
himself.  "My  James,"  he  said,  "you  here,  miss! 
Whatever's  gone  wrong?  " 

"Nothing,  Captain.     Is  this  your  private  cabin?" 

"  It's  the  chart  house  —  yes." 

"  And  are  you  at  liberty  at  any  time  soon?  " 

"  Yes  —  now.  Here,  you  clear  out.  My  dear, 
there  must  be  something  gone  very  wrong." 

She  laughed  a  little  nervously.  "  I  tell  you  noth- 
ing has  happened,  except  that  I've  changed  my  job. 
Ah,  there's  Sir  George's  retriever.  Good  old  dog, 
Rex.  But  haven't  you  got  my  letter?  I  sent  one  by 
a  native  in  a  boat." 

"  My  conscience !  That'll  have  been  what  that  un- 
baptized  Parsee  was  jabbering  about.  No,  my  dear, 
I  never  got  it.  But  if  you're  in  trouble,  of  course 
you've  come  to  the  right  place." 

"  I  tell  you,  dear,  there  was  no  real  trouble.  For 
a  long  time  —  in  fact,  all  the  time  since  I've  known 
you.  Captain,  I've  been  a  good  deal  dissatisfied  with 
business  in  the  public  line,  and  when  pa  got  a  bit  fresh 
with  me  the  other  night  about  not  serving  a  gentle- 
man with  another  glass  when  I  said  he'd  had  enough, 
I  thought  it  was  a  good  opportunity  to  quit,  and 
handed  in  my  resignation  there  and  then  on  the  spot. 


134     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

I  may  tell  you  I'd  had  it  in  mind  ever  since  Sir  George 
spoke  to  me." 

"  My  dear,  you'd  better  tell  me  the  whole  thing  at 
once.     What's  Sir  George  to  do  with  it?  " 

"  Hasn't  he  told  you?  Well,  however,  I  suppose  he 
thought  we  were  too  much  in  one  another's  confidence 
to  have  any  secrets.  Anyway,  all  he  said  was  this, 
and  mind,  it  was  after  you  had  left  Foston,  and 
were  working  on  the  Wangaroo  at  South  Shields,  as 
you  wrote  me.  He  comes  in  one  day  to  the  Mason's 
Arms,  and  he  says :  *  Miss  Dubbs,  do  you  know  any 
reliable  lady  who'd  go  out  on  our  little  steamer  as 
sort  of  maid-companion-stewardess  to  look  after  my 
sister?  I  don't  want  a  maid  altogether,  because  she's 
got  one  already  who's  no  good  for  this  sort  of  trip; 
I  want  something  more  than  a  stewardess ;  and  I 
want  something  a  bit  less  than  the  ordinary  useless 
companion.'  I  laughs  and  says  I  didn't  think  there 
were  many,  ladies  yet  born  who  were  up  to  all  those 
requirements,  and  he  laughs  and  says  he  supposed 
they  could  be  made.  He's  always  a  very  merry  man- 
ner with  him,  has  Sir  George,  but  he  knows  where 
to  stop.     He's  always  quite  the  gentleman." 

"  I've  found  that  myself." 

"Well,  I  said  that  if  I  came  across  any  lady  who 
would  fulfil  all  his  requirements  I  would  let  him 
know." 

"  *  That  won't  do.  Miss  Dubbs,'  says  he.  '  I  sail 
to-morrow,  and,  according  to  Captain  Kettle's  calcu- 
lations, our  boat's  going  to  take  a  most  pleasantly  long 


THE  STEWARDESS  SIGNS  135 

time  to  reach  Grand  Canary,  which  is  to  be  our  first 
port  of  call.  My  sister's  got  the  date  out  of  me,  and 
declares  she's  going  to  follow  by  the  mail  boat,  and 
join  at  Las  Palmas.  I  don't  think  she  will;  it's  a 
score  to  one  she  changes  her  mind  between  now  and 
then;  but  if  she  doesn't,  she  sails  by  the  Cape  mail 
boat  from  Southampton  to-day  week.  Now,  I  don't 
want  her  to  go  unless  she  has  the  escort  I  have  been 
describing  to  you,  so  if  you  see  your  way  to  provid- 
ing the  young  person,  just  drop  her  a  line  to  this  ad- 
dress, and  I  shall  be  infinitely  obliged  to  you  '." 

"  Ah,"  said  Captain  Kettle,  "  but  I  never  thought  of 
your  coming  down  to  this  sort  of  business,  dear." 

"And  what  sort  is  that,  please?" 

"Well,  stewardess?" 

"  I  prefer  to  call  it  *  companion  '.  But  whatever  it 
is,  Captain,  my  idea  is  that,  as  I  was  a  minister's 
daughter  and  a  lady  once,  a  lady  I  shall  always  be. 
How's  that?" 

"  Right  as  usual,"  said  the  little  sailor  with  a  sigh. 
"  But  there  may  be  more  complications  in  this  than 
you  think." 

"You  mean  the  trip's  not  safe?  There  may  be 
trouble  with  those  tribesmen  where  the  wreck  is  lying. 
Well,  I'm  ready  to  take  what  comes.  Or,  I'll 
put  it  this  way  if  you  like:  what's  good  enough  for 
the  gentleman  I'm  engaged  to  is  good  enough  for 
me.  Besides,  it  seemed  likely  to  be  my  only  chance 
of  foreign  travel.  We  must  look  things  in  the 
face,  Captain;  when  we  are  married  it  is  quite  pos- 


136     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

sible  I  shall  have  to  stay  at  home  from  then  after- 
ward." 

Captain  Kettle  tugged  vexedly  at  his  red  torpedo 
beard.  "  Quite  true,  my  dear  —  quite  true.  But 
those  aren't  the  only  complications.  Does  it  occur 
to  you  what  I  am  on  this  ship?  Do  you  understand 
that  the  second  mate,  who's  fifty-five,  if  he's  a  day, 
refers  to  me  as  the  '  old  man  ' —  and  I'm  twenty- 
seven?  Do  you  know  that  here  on  board  ship  you'll 
have  to  give  me  respect,  and  say,  '  Yes,  Captain,'  and 
*  No,  Captain,'  when  you  speak  to  me?  That's  dis- 
cipline." 

Miss  Dubbs  rose  to  the  whole  of  her  statuesque 
height.  "  And  pray  when,"  said  she,  "  have  I  ever 
done  anything  else?" 

"  No,  quite  true,"  said  Kettle  miserably.  "  It'll 
come  easier  to  you  than  it  would  to  most.  And,  of 
course,  if  you  call  it  *  companion,'  and  not  '  steward- 
ess,' and  only  sign  on  ship's  articles  for  a  shilling  a 
month  —  as  Sir  George's  sister  must,  of  course,  see- 
ing that  we  don't  carry  a  passenger  certificate  —  well, 
a  lot  may  be  overlooked.  But,  in  ways  that  you  don't 
understand,  you  really  do  make  it  remarkably  awk- 
ward for  me.  I  wish  you'd  told  me  beforehand  that 
you'd  got  this  in  mind." 

"  And  then  you'd  have  headed  me  off?  I  knew  the 
African  coast  where  you  are  going  to  was  a  dangerous 
spot." 

"  Quite  so.     I  expect  it  is." 

"  Then,  as  I've  said  before,"  replied  Miss  Dubbs 


THE  STEWARDESS  SIGNS  137 

comfortably,  "  what's  good  enough  for  you,  my  dear, 
in  that  line  is  good  enough  for  yours  truly.  So  don't 
let  us  have  any  more  grousing."  She  took  out  a  hat- 
pin, and  stood  before  the  glass  and  prinked  up  her 
elaborate  black  hair.  "Of  course,  some  girls  might 
even  have  expected  you  to  say  you  were  pleased  to 
see  them." 

"  Aye,  but,"  said  Captain  Kettle  doggedly,  "  there 
may  be  other  complications  still.  You  say  you  are 
Miss  Chesterman's  companion.  Did  you  travel  out 
together?" 

"  Thank  you,  I  know  my  place.  She  went  saloon. 
I,  of  course,  came  second  cabin,  and  very  comfortable 
and  social,  I  may  say,  I  found  it;  though,  to  be  sure, 
being  a  South  African  boat,  there  were  more  Jews 
than  some  people  could  have  fancied." 

"  Well,  there  you  are,  my  dear.  We've  no  second 
cabin  here.  We  haven't  a  mess  room.  The  engi- 
neers take  their  meals  in  the  saloon  with  Sir  George, 
and  me,  and  the  mates;  and  a  nasty  feeder  the  chief 
is,  if  ever  I  saw  one.  You've  your  choice,  miss,  be- 
tween that  and  the  fo'cs'le." 

"  Does  the  cabin  steward  dine  with  the  common 
sailors  and  firemen  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  expect  he  gets  his  bit  in  the  pantry,  standing 
up.  No  one  ever  worries  as  to  where  stewards  mess, 
unless  it's  on  a  big  boat,  where  they  have  a  proper 
glory-hole.  No  need  to  trouble  about  stewards;  they 
keep  fat  enough,  and  never  worry  about  any  Board 
pf  Trade  whack." 


138     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  I  shall  take  my  meals  with  the  steward,  Captain^ 
and  I've  no  doubt  that,  if  he's  a  gentleman,  he'll 
provide  me  with  an  aerated  water  case  to  sit  upon." 

"  It's  disgusting  to  think  about  the  lady  I'm  going 
to  marry  doing  this  sort  of  thing,  miss,  while  I'm 
sitting  down  getting  my  meals  with  Sir  George  and 
his  sister." 

"  You're  different.  You're  there  because  you're 
captain,  and  head  of  the  table  on  your  own  ship  is 
3^our  lawful  position.  But  I  know  my  own  place, 
just  as  you  know  yours,  and  I'm  going  to  keep  it; 
and  don't  you  try  and  make  no  alteration,  because  I 
won't  stand  it.  So  now,  Captain,  you  plainly  under- 
stand. You'll  kindly  look  upon  me  as  a  stewardess, 
and  treat  me  exactly  as  such  while  I  am  on  board  here 
under  your  command.  And  now,  my  dear,  I'll  bid 
you  good  day  for  the  present,  as  I've  to  go  back  ashore 
again  to  the  hotel  to  pack  up  Miss  Chesterman's 
trunks." 


CHAPTER  X 

RE-ENTER   THE   NORMAN   TOWERS 

BY  an  amiable  eccentricity  of  the  British  shipping 
laws,  a  vessel  which  does  not  own  that  expensive 
luxury,  a  passenger  certificate,  when  she  does  carry 
passengers,  as  so  frequently  is  the  case,  signs  them  on 
before  shore  officials  as  members  of  her  crew.  Thus, 
Sir  George  Chesterman,  M.P.,  wrote  his  name  to  the 
wholly  erroneous  statement  that  he  was  a  qualified 
ship's  surgeon,  and  that  he  was  content  to  serve  as 
such  for  the  entirely  inadequate  salary  of  one  shilling 
sterling  per  mensem. 

Miss  Violet  Chesterman  declared  that  she  assented 
to  certain  conditions  of  service  as  read  out  to  her,  and 
agreed  to  conform  to  them  in  all  items,  also  on  the 
same  cheap  terms;  and  bracketed  with  her  name  ap- 
peared the  name  of  Miss  Emily  Dubbs,  as  an  indica- 
tion that  she  had  taken  similar  vows.  And  so  over 
all  of  them  Captain  Kettle,  as  master,  held  powers  of 
the  high  justice,  the  middle  and  the  low,  as  by  Law  of 
the  Sea  ordained. 

It  is  a  fair  thing  to  say  that,  on  the  run  from,  the 
Islands  to  the  African  coast,  there  were  three  acutely 
imcomfortable  people  among  the  Wangaroo's  after- 
guard —  namely,  the  two  women  and  Captain  Owen 

139 


140     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

Kettle ;  and  there  were  two  —  to  wit,  Sir  George 
Chesterman  and  Mr.  Neil  Angus  McTodd  —  who  both 
understood  the  situation  and  were  cynically  amused 
at  it.  Rex,  the  big  black  retriever,  who  had  also  a 
strong  sense  of  humor,  in  moments  when  he  was  alone 
with  Sir  George,  showed  by  grins  and  wrigglings  that 
he  also  was  highly  tickled  by  surrounding  events. 

Captain  Owen  Kettle  on  his  part  kept  up  a  con- 
stant activity.  When  once  they  were  clear  of  Grand 
Canary  —  without  interference  from  the  authorities, 
by  the  way  —  he  mustered  all  hands  on  deck,  and 
made  announcements. 

"  Men,"  he  said,  "  Sir  George  Chesterton,  M.P., 
has  chartered  this  ship  to  go  and  look  for  a  steam- 
boat that  is  embayed  behind  some  reefs  off  the  African 
coast.  You've  heard  most  of  the  tale  already,  I 
know,  because  it's  been  talked  of  in  the  cabin  at 
meals,  and  what's  discussed  there  always  gets  forrard. 
Now  it's  not  likely  the  tribes  over  yonder  will  give 
any  trouble.  They  are  the  peoples  of  the  Sus  country, 
and  the  Sultan  of  Morocco  has  given  them  such  a  bad 
time  on  every  occasion  when  he  has  arrived  down 
there  to  collect  taxes  that  they  ought  to  be  civil  to 
every  one  who  doesn't  happen  to  come  from  Morocco. 

"  Besides,  we've  got  a  cargo  below  —  I  don't  mind 
telling  you  now  —  of,  rifles  and  ammunition  which 
we  are  open  to  selling  to  deserving  tribesmen  on 
reasonable  terms.  At  the  same  time,  I'm  not  taking 
anything  to  do  with  colored  men  on  trust,  and  if  they 
are  anxious  for  trouble,  I'm  exactly  the  man  to  give 


RE-ENTER  THE  NORMAN  TOWERS     141 

it  to  them.  For  that  reason,  I  intend  to  teach  you  all 
how  to  get  off  a  gun  without  shooting  any  of  your 
neighbors,  and  with  a  reasonable  chance  of  hitting 
the  mark  you're  aiming  at.  Now,  then,  are  there  any 
experts  among  you  ?  " 

There  was  a  pause,  and  the  crew  looked  at  one 
another  sheepishly. 

"  That's  better.  I  like  modesty.  Any  one  ever 
even  handled  a  gun  ?  " 

A  grimy  fireman  threw  the  sweat  rag  over  his 
shoulder,  stood  out,  and  came  to  military  attention. 
"  R.N.R.,  sir.  Stoker  rating.  I've  learned  my  drill, 
but  I'm  only  what  you  might  call  a  fourth-class  shot." 

"  You're  one  of  the  men  I  want.  Come  now,  what 
are  you  two  on  the  hatch  grinning  about?" 

"  I  was  just  saying  that  I  was  a  pretty  good  game 
shot,  sir,  before  I  came  to  sea,  and  Somers,  my  mate 
here,  was  the  same.  In  fact,  it  was  because  we  was 
such  good  shots  we  thought  it  better  to  leave  where 
we  was  ashore.  But  we  neither  of  us  ever  handled  a 
rifle.     Shot-guns  was  what  we  was  brought  up  with." 

"Brace  of  poachers,  were  you,  eh?  Well,  your 
morals  will  have  had  time  to  improve  since  you've 
been  abroad  of  me,  and  your  shooting  will  come  back 
to  you.     Step  up  now.     Anybody  else?" 

A  bent,  old,  bald-headed  man  piped  out :  "  I  was 
quartermaster,  sir,  once  on  a  China  boat  with  a  coolie 
crew,  and  two  or  three  times  when  they  or  the  Chow 
passengers  got  fresh,  the  old  man  —  I  should  say 
captain  —  served   out   Winchesters   to   us   whites.     I 


142     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

never  let  off  mine,  but  I  got  to  know  the  handling  of 
her,  and  I  guess  if  I'd  one  given  me  now  I  wouldn't 
shoot  any  of  this  crowd,  even  if  it  did  come  to  be  a 
bit  exciting.  But  I  don't  know  as  I  could  hit  any- 
thing I  aimed  at  unless  the  mark  was  mighty  close." 

Captain  Kettle  from  his  elevation  stared  down  upon 
them  sourly :  "  You're  an  unpromising  lot  of  toughs. 
I  wonder  what  you'd  call  yourselves  on  a  census  paper. 
Sailors  you  certainly  are  not.  Well,  with  the  Lord's 
help,  I'll  lick  you  into  some  kind  of  horse-marines 
before  I'm  through  with  you.  Bo's'n,  break  up  two 
cases  of  those  rifles  from  number  two  hold,  and  dis- 
tribute them  round.  You  Reservist,  you  Black 
Poacher,  you  Red  Poacher,  and  you  Coolie  Driver,  I 
appoint  you  corporals  for  the  time  being.  If  you're 
efficient  you'll  get  an  extra  tot  of  rum  a  day.  If  you 
aren't,  and  you  can't  drum  sense  into  your  squads, 
you'll  hear  from  me  personally,  and  so  will  they* 
Now,  you've  each  got  seven  men  apiece,  and  two 
extra  that  you  can  toss  for,  and  your  first  job  is  to 
teach  them  which  end  of  the  rifle  to  hold,  and  how  to 
carry  it  about  without  poking  anybody's  eye  out.  I'll 
give  you  twenty-four  hours  to  do  it  in.  That's  the 
lot.     Get  away  and  set  to  work." 

Sailormen  are  proverbially  grumblers,  but  this  crew 
'(as  Kettle  expressed  It)  had  the  vice  thoroughly 
worked  out  of  them  by  this  date.  They  had  come 
aboard  in  the  Tyne,  bleary,  ragged,  sullen,  mutinous, 
and  owing  to  the  slight  mystery  which  hung  over 
their  enlistment,  thought  they  were  going  to  have  an 


RE-ENTER  THE  NORMAN  TOWERS     143 

easy  idle  time  of  it.  Never  were  crew  more  dis- 
illusioned. 

An  iron  discipline  descended  on  them  and  held  them 
in  rigid  grooves.  They  were  worked  mercilessly  at 
chipping  ironwork,  painting  iron  and  woodwork,  set- 
ting up  rigging,  calking  decks,  holystoning  decks, 
and  a  hundred  other  laborious  operations ;  a  blow  fol- 
lowed a  sullen  word;  a  savage  kick  was  the  reward 
of  a  laggard  arm;  and  the  utmost  was  extracted  from 
every  one. 

As  a  result,  as  far  as  man  could  make  her,  tKe 
ihomely  little  steamer  was  as  smart  as  a  yacht,  and  the 
all-nation  rapscallions  who  manned  her  had  been 
turned  into  a  crew  of  hard,  strong,  well-disciplined 
men,  quick  to  answer  an  order,  and  in  all  ordinary  sea 
matters  skilful  to  carry  it  out.  The  big  burly  mem- 
ber of  Parliament  watched  the  transition  with  an  ap- 
preciative eye.  He  had  seen  men  driven  in  politics, 
and  had  been  rather  contemptuous  of  the  result.  It 
struck  him  that  after  they  had  undergone  the  process 
the  most  of  them  ceased  to  be  men. 

But  here  the  process  was  reversed.  The  raw  prod- 
ucts that  Captain  Kettle  had  commenced  on  were  most 
of  them  less  than  men,  and  under  his  remorseless  drill 
he  had  (as  it  appeared  to  Sir  George)  converted  each 
one  of  them  into  the  complete  super-seaman. 

After  the  lapse  of  twenty-four  hours  hands  were 
again  called  on  deck,  and  they  appeared  smartly 
enough,  each  carrying  his  rifle  in  the  method  that  ap- 
pealed   to    him    best.     But    they    all    handled    their 


144     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

weapons  as  if  they  had  at  least  a  nodding  acquaintance 
with  them. 

"  Now,  I've  no  idea  of  turning  you  sailors  into  a 
squad  of  infantry,"  said  the  little  captain,  "  I  don't 
see  that  it  would  make  me  any  the  happier  to  have 
you  taught  soldiers'  drill.  But  you've  got  to  learn 
to  shoot  off  those  guns  without  shutting  your  eyes; 
and  if  you  can  learn  to  hit  a  target,  so  much  the  better. 
Bo's'n,  get  up  a  thousand  rounds  of  cartridges,  and 
make  fast  twenty-five  fathoms  of  line  on  to  the  case 
when  you  have  emptied  it,  and  tow  it  astern.  I  don't 
suppose  any  of  you  men  will  hit  it,  except  by  accident ; 
but  the  spouts  in  the  water  will  show  you  where  your 
shots  go,  and  firing  at  a  bobbing  target  like  that  will 
be  much  better  practice  for  you  than  blazing  at  a  fixed 
mark  on  a  steady  beach.  It  may  occur  to  those 
among  you  who've  got  thinking  machines  that  a  man, 
when  he's  being  shot  at,  doesn't  always  keep  quite 
still.  The  main  point  I  want  you  to  remember  about 
this  rifle  practice  is,  don't  hurry.  Fourteen  shots  that 
miss  don't  do  near  as  much  damage  as  one  that's  well 
thought  out  and  plugs  the  other  party  in  the  liver. 
That's  a  military  fact." 

Captain  Owen  Kettle,  at  that  period  of  his  career, 
was  not  in  any  way  learned  in  the  art  of  war.  But 
at  the  same  time  one  is  forced  to  admit  that  he  had  a 
fine  natural  instinct  for  it. 

To  be  sure,  he  was  hampered  by  no  text-book 
knowledge  of  pipe-clayed  military  science,  but  out  of 
his  inner  consciousness  he  evolved  a  scheme,  and,  as 


RE-ENTER  THE  NORMAN  TOWERS     145 

it  subsequently  proved  so  eminently  successful  for 
irregular  warfare,  it  may  be  here  commended. 

In  a  few  words,  it  may  be  described  thus :  "  First 
catch  your  man,  and  take  care  he  is  not  in  a  state  of 
prosperity ;  work  him  and  handle  him  till  he  is  as  hard 
as  a  nut,  quick  as  a  flash,  and  bold  as  a  bull-terrier; 
and  then  teach  him  to  shoot  and  take  cover.  Leading 
will  do  the  rest." 

The  letter  from  Sir  George's  cousin,  that  unfortu- 
nate medical  man  from  Harley  Street  who  had  gone 
astray,  on  w^hich  the  plan  of  the  whole  expedition 
was  built,  though  excellent  in  many  details,  was  weak 
where  it  touched  on  the  exact  art  of  nautical  astron- 
omy. 

The  admiralty  charts,  also,  of  the  whole  of  the 
West  African  seaboard  are  notoriously  defective,  and 
those  of  that  section  of  the  coast  which  just  then  in- 
terested Sir  George  Chesterman  and  his  skipper  were 
worse  than  this  —  they  were  imaginative.  They 
marked  reefs  where  there  was  none,  islets  where  the 
sea  swells  swept  unchecked,  and  deep  waters  to  which 
ominous  breakers  gave  the  open  lie.  Once,  a  good 
five  miles  out  from  the  rolling  dunes  of  the  beach, 
the  Wangaroo  stopped  suddenly  in  her  steady  eight- 
knot  gait,  shivered  a  little,  and  then  went  on;  and 
Captain  Kettle  shivered  also  when  he  thought  how 
near  he  had  come  to  casting  away  his  first  command. 

Henceforward  the  steamer  kept  an  offing  where  the 
depth  of  water  was  beyond  suspicion,  and  crows' 
nests  were  rigged  whaler  fashion  at  the  mastheads, 


146     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

in  which  the  hands  took  it  in  turn  to  be  seaside,  and 
to  search  the  shore-line  with  strong  binoculars. 

Even  then  they  missed  the  object  of  their  search  on 
the  first  run  down  the  coast,  but  when  they  had  passed 
the  southern  limit  of  possibility,  the  Wangaroo  turned 
north  again  to  repeat  doggedly  the  hunt  with  more 
thoroughness,  and  at  a  slower  pace.  This  time,  when 
an  atom  of  doubt  rested  on  the  exact  position  of  the 
shore-line,  a  boat  was  manned  and  sent  away  to  ex- 
plore it  at  closer  range,  and  the  jottings  on  the  chart 
which  indicated  this  boat's  discoveries,  as  after- 
ward forwarded  by  Sir  George  Chesterman  to  the 
proper  quarters,  form  to-day  a  very  useful  addition  to 
the  world's  knowledge  of  hydrography. 

That  northwest  coast  of  Africa  had  by  no  means 
the  smooth  shore-line  the  authorized  sea  maps  would 
have  led  them  to  believe.  It  swung  out  into  gulfs 
and  bays,  and  was  incrusted  with  islets;  here,  the 
mouth  of  a  dead  river  that  had  once  (perhaps  no 
further  back  than  Roman  days)  flowed  from  the 
Sahara  country,  showed  a  silted  lagoon  dry  at  half- 
ebb;  there,  sand-polished  rocks  and  a  scour  of  current 
had  made  a  deep-water  harbor,  in  which  a  navy  might 
moor. 

For  miles  the  coast  would  show  nothing  but  barren 
rock  and  roasting  sand;  then  a  few  lean  palms  would 
straggle  across  the  crest  of  the  dunes;  and  once  in  a 
way,  in  the  mouth  of  some  wady  that  carried  a  trickle 
of  moisture,  there  would  be  a  genuine  patch  of  good 
dense  tropical  bush.     But  on  the  whole,  the  coast-line 


RE-ENTER  THE  NORMAN  TOWERS     147 

and  its  islets  were  for  mile  after  mile  sterile  and  un- 
inviting, and  for  a  big  ore  steamer  to  be  tucked  away 
there  in  hiding  seemed  to  be  a  thing  impossible. 

Twice  indeed  there  were  loud  cries  of,  "  There  she 
is ! "  and  consequent  excitement.  But  the  first,  on 
nearer  inspection,  proved  to  be  the  shell  of  a  wrecked 
iron  sailing  ship,  a  ruin  that  had  been  grilled  there 
by  twenty  years  of  outrageous  sun;  and  the  cause  of 
the  second  alarm  showed  itself  on  examination  to  be 
no  ship  at  all,  but  an  outcrop  of  red  hematite  rock 
fashioned  presumably  by  Satan  for  their  irritation  and 
annoyance. 

"  This,"  said  Sir  George,  fanning  himself  under  an 
awning,  "  isn't  nearly  as  amusing  as  I  expected."  He 
and  his  black  retriever  had  been  off  in  the  boat  on 
the  lure  of  the  iron  outcrop,  and  the  pair  of  them  had 
been  nearly  cooked  alive  on  the  passage,  and  narrowly 
escaped  a  spill  in  getting  back  on  the  rolling  steamer. 
"  The  ice-chest's  empty,  the  fresh  meat  is  finished, 
and  by  the  taste  of  the  water  the  cook  makes  tea  and 
things  of,  I  should  imagine  that  some  one  must  have 
been  drowning  a  ferret  in  it.  Also  the  coat  of  mold 
that  collects  on  the  outside  of  my  cigars  doesn't  im- 
prove their  flavor.  I  say.  Skipper,  what  about  turn- 
ing back  ?  " 

"  You're  owner,  sir,"  said  Kettle  stifHy.  "  It's  for 
you  to  give  orders." 

"What  do  you  say,  Violet?" 

"  I  agree  with  you  that  it's  acutely  uncomfortable  " 
—  she  glanced  out  of  the  tail  of  her  eye  at  Captain 


148     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

Kettle  ■ — "  in  more  ways  than  one.  But  I  don't  think 
you  ought  to  give  the  thing  up  so  long  as  there's  a 
chance  left.  It  isn't  as  if  you  were  a  rich  man, 
George,  now.  If  you  found  the  ship  and  realized  on 
her,  you'd  be  put  nicely  on  your  financial  feet  again, 
while  if  you  don't,  I  should  say  you'll  find  yourself 
badly  dipped.  This  trip  must  have  cost  you  a  tidy 
penny,  one  way  and  another." 

"And  is  continuing  to  cost  so  much  a  day.  I'm 
beginning  to  think  poor  Fred  wrote  that  letter  when 
he  v/as  light-headed,  and  that  he  never  really  saw  the 
steamer  again,  once  he  had  left  her." 

"  I  don't  agree  with  you  a  bit.  Remember  I  knew 
Fred  as  well  or  better  than  you  did,  and  he  hadn't 
a  particle  of  imagination  in  the  whole  of  his  composi- 
tion. He  was  the  most  literal  matter-of-fact  sort  of 
person  that  ever  bungled  a  medical  practice.  He 
prided  himself  on  unemotional  observation,  and  if  he 
says  there  were  islands  and  a  steamer  behind  them, 
islands  there  are  and  a  steamer  there  is.  Don't  you 
agree  with  me,  Captain  ?  " 

"  Miss,"  said  Captain  Kettle,  "  I'm  a  man  without 
imagination  myself.  Sir  George  showed  m.e  the  let- 
ter, and  I  read  it  eight  times  over,  and  saw  nothing 
in  it  but  plain  straightforward  statement  of  fact.  We 
may,  through  my  want  of  skill  and  eyesight,  fail  to 
find  the  spot  he  speaks  about,  or  he  may  have  gone 
badly  adrift  In  his  longitude,  but  I'll  stake  my  ticket 
on  it  that  he  saw  what  he  says  he  saw." 

Amusement   flickered   in   Sir   George's   tired   eyes. 


RE-ENTER  THE  NORMAN  TOWERS     149 

"You're  quite  an  enthusiast,  Skipper.  Well,  Violet, 
if  you  can  stick  it  for  another  week,  I  suppose  I  can, 
too.  The  skipper  must  try  and  make  things  as  easy 
for  us  as  he  can  manage  it." 

"  I  quite  agree  to  the  last  proviso,"  said  Miss 
Chesterman  mischievously. 

Mile  by  mile  to  the  northward,  the  Wangaroo 
searched  during  the  hours  of  daylight,  lying-to  at 
night  so  as  not  to  overrun  her  ground  in  the  dark, 
and  one  blazing  day  succeeded  another  without  tangi- 
ble result.  But  in  the  cool  of  one  evening,  success 
arrived  at  last.  A  hail  came  from  the  crow's  nest 
which  was  perched  up  higher  under  the  fore  truck. 
"  The  bridge  there." 

"  Aye." 

"  D'ye  see  a  hummock  broad  on  the  starboard  bow, 
sir  —  just  on  the  edge  of  the  coast?  Seems  to  me 
two  colors,  sir  —  mustard-yellow  and  blue." 

"  That'll  be  the  sunset,  you  fool !  "  said  the  elderly 
second  mate  from  the  bridge.  "  I  can't  see  it  myself. 
Wait  till  I  get  the  glasses." 

The  look-out  man  in  the  crow's  nest  on  the  main- 
mast took  up  the  tale,  and  the  pair  bawled  down  their 
news  ding-dong. 

"  There's  w^ater  in  at  the  back  of  that  land,  sir." 

"  River  mouth,  sir." 

"  Looks  to  me  a  lagoon,  sir." 

"  There's  water  on  beyond  again,  sir.  I  just  then 
got  a  glimpse  of  it  as  she  rolled." 

"  That's  an  island  off  the  coast,  or  a  row  of  them." 


150     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  What  you  see  is  not  the  coast,  sir  —  or,  at  any 
rate,  there's  a  big  river  in  at  the  back  of  it" 

"  There's  a  lagoon  stretching  right  along.  You 
can  pick  out  points  of  it  where  the  sun  catches  the 
water." 

The  old  second  mate  stared  through  his  glasses,  but 
naturally  could  make  out  nothing,  as  the  lower  edge  of 
the  shore-line  was  well  below  his  horizon,  and  so  in 
the  end  he  contented  himself  with  the  curt,  "  Aye, 
aye,"  of  acknowledgment. 

He  was  a  stupid  man,  and  prided  himself  on  his 
stupidity.  He  was  hired  (according  to  his  theory) 
to  act  as  second  mate  of  a  seven-hundred-fifty-ton 
steamboat,  and  not  to  make  discoveries. 

But  Captain  Kettle  at  the  first  note  of  news  had 
walked  briskly  along  the  immaculate  decks,  had  swung 
himself  into  the  fore  rigging,  and  had  run  nimbly 
aloft,  and  presently,  passing  outside  the  barrel  which 
formed  the  crow's  nest,  stood  on  the  upper  edges  of  it 
with  an  arm  round  the  masthead  just  beneath  the 
truck. 

Those  on  deck  saw  him  there,  a  small  white-clad 
figure,  sawing  backward  and  forward  against  the 
evening  sky,  and  peering  dexterously  through  a  long 
telescope  at  the  shore  and  what  lay  beyond.  Voices 
stopped.  The  Wangaroo  slipped  through  the  swells 
in  silence,  except  for  the  dull  internal  rumble  of  her 
engines.  All  owned  afterward  to  having  felt  a  curi- 
ous premonitory  thrill. 

To  those  who  watched.  Kettle  seemed  maddeningly 


RE-ENTER  THE  NORMAN  TOWERS     151 

slow.  They  watched  his  long  telescope  saw  up  and 
down  in  constant  arc  as  the  steamer  rolled,  they 
watched  him  pick  up  the  invisible  ground  beyond 
their  horizon  and  examine  it,  as  it  seemed,  foot  by 
foot,  and  then  he  swung  back  and  commenced  the 
search  all  over  again. 

Sir  George  tried  to  break  the  tension.  "  Well, 
Skipper,"  he  hailed.     "Is  that  the  place?" 

"  Couldn't  say,  sir,"  came  the  chilly  reply,  and  again 
the  audience  watched  the  telescope  plod  slowly  over 
the  coast-line.  The  sun,  in  a  ball  of  scarlet  fire,  was 
sinking  in  visible  inches  below  the  western  horizon, 
and  Captain  Kettle's  white  drill  uniform  was  tinted 
pink  by  the  afterglow. 

But  presently  from  the  masthead  came  the  hail. 
"Mr.  Forster!" 

"  Sir?  "  said  the  fat  old  second  mate. 

"  D'ye  see  that  hummock  lying  about  due  east,  with 
the  stripes  on  it  and  a  table  top?  Just  take  a  bear- 
ing." 

The  second  mate  peered  at  the  mark  and  then 
squinted  down  at  the  binnacle.  "  East  by  south  a 
quarter  east,  sir." 

"  Can  you  open  out  any  land  behind  it?  " 

The  old  fellow  peered  again.  "  No,  sir.  The 
hummock's  on  my  sky-line,  with  a  clean  edge  to  it." 

"  Very  good.  Then  call  away  the  surf -boat,  and 
get  water  and  some  biscuit  into  her." 

Captain  Kettle  came  down  from  aloft  as  briskly 
as  he  had  gone  up,  and  it  was  typical  of  him  that  he 


152     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

did  not  make  any  pronouncement  to  satisfy  the  curi- 
osity of  his  crew.  Instead,  he  went  quietly  to  where 
Sir  George  sat  with  his  sister,  and  gave  the  news  to 
them. 

"  There's  a  regular  fishing-net  of  islands  In  at  the 
back  there.  I  can  see  no  trace  of  our  steamer,  but 
it's  quite  possible  she's  there.  Many  of  the  islands 
are  a  tidy  size,  and  she  might  easily  be  tucked  in  at 
the  back  and  out  of  sight.  I  can't  take  the  steamer 
in  without  a  lot  of  sounding,  so  I'm  going  off  in  the 
boat." 

"Not  yourself?  Not  by  night?"  It  was  Miss 
Chesterman  who  raised  the  objection. 

"  It  will  be  cooler  for  the  men  for  one  thing,  miss, 
and  in  a  couple  of  hours  from  now  when  the  moon's 
up,  it  will  be  just  as  easy  to  see  as  in  daylight." 

"  You'd  better  go,  too,  Violet,  if  you  think  the 
skipper  needs  chaperoning." 

"  I'd  love  to." 

"  The  dew'll  be  very  heavy,  miss,  drenching,  in 
fact.  Besides,  if  we  find  what  we  are  looking  for,  we 
shall  have  to  do  a  lot  of  sounding,  and  I  may  be  away 
a  couple  of  days.  I  couldn't  undertake  to  look  after 
a  lady  all  that  time  in  an  open  boat." 

"  Oh,  all  right,"  said  Miss  Chesterman,  and  frowned 
at  her  brother,  who  had  caught  her  eye  behind  Cap- 
tain Kettle's  back  and  winked.  That  officer  had  gone 
to  the  side  to  see  if  the  boat's  company  and  the  rest 
of  her  equipment  were  to  his  taste,  and  presently  re- 
turned to  his  room   for  a  revolver  and  a  bottle  of 


RE-ENTER  THE  NORMAN  TOWERS     153 

Horner's  Perfect  Cure,  which  he  stowed  in  his  outside 
pockets. 

"  The  drug's  a  guard  against  malaria,  sir,"  he  ex- 
plained. "  Sea  chills  just  about  twilight  are  very 
dangerous  in  this  climate.  I  shall  give  all  hands  of 
my  boat's  crew  a  tot  of  Horner  presently,  and  you'll 
see  they'll  never  turn  a  hair.  Mr.  ]\Iate,  I  leave  you 
in  charge.  I  may  be  gone  up  to  three  days.  Hang 
on  here  till  then,  and  if  we  don't  turn  up,  send  in  an- 
other boat,  well  armed.  It's  just  possible  we  may 
get  spilt  in  the  surf  or  stove  on  a  reef,  and  need  fetch- 
ing off.  Miss  Chesterman  and  Sir  George,  I  wish 
you  good  evening.  With  luck,  I  hope  to  be  back  on 
board  here  again  before  breakfast." 

A  naked  rope  dangling  down  the  Wangaroo's  sleek 
black  side  was  the  only  highroad  to  the  boat,  and  Mr. 
Kettle  went  down  it  nimbly  hand  over  hand,  walking 
with  his  feet  against  the  ship's  plating.  From  bow 
and  stern  the  guess  warp  was  dropped,  and  boat- 
hooks  thrust  the  boat  out  from  the  ship's  side;  oars 
rose  and  fell  into  the  water  and  settled  comfortably 
between  their  thole-pins :  and  at  "  Give  way  ",  the  oars 
bit  the  surface  as  one  machine,  and  the  boat  gathered 
way. 

"  Good  luck,"  shouted  Sir  George  from  the  rail, 
and  Miss  Chesterman,  with  moist  eyes,  waved  an  atom 
of  handkerchief,  and  the  black  retriever  swung  a 
thoughtful  tail.  Captain  Kettle  waved  in  return,  and 
then  his  eyes  sought  a  lower  level,  and  ran  over  two 
or  three  of  the  round  cabin  port-holes.     Apparently  he 


154     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

saw  what  he  sought  for  there,  for  he  waved  again, 
and  lifting  his  nose  fancied  he  scented  in  the  air  the 
faint  trace  of  the  frangipani  which  Miss  Dubbs  af- 
fected for  her  toilet. 

The  watchers  followed  the  surf-boat  with  their  eyes 
till  night  snapped  down  with  tropical  suddenness ;  and 
as  at  the  same  time  the  steamer's  lights  were  kindled, 
and  dazzled  the  eye,  the  boat  vanished  into  the  gloom 
which  had  come  down  to  cover  the  sea. 

Violet  Chesterman  shivered.  "  I  believe  I'm 
afraid,"  she  said.  "  Anyway,  it's  quite  a  new  feeling, 
and  I  can't  think  what  else  it  can  be." 

"  Then  you  ought  to  be  rather  pleased,"  was  the 
brotherly  retort,  "  as  I  suppose  you  mean  it's  a  new 
and  therefore  pleasurable  sensation  for  you.  In  the 
meanwhile,  if  you're  thinking  of  yourself,  I've  reason 
to  believe  that  the  ship  is  being  efficiently  looked  after 
by  what's  his  name  —  oh,  yes,  Trethewy,  the  mate. 
I  can't  imagine  your  fears  are  on  behalf  of  our  ex- 
cellent skipper.  He  strikes  me  as  a  man  one  couldn't 
get  killed  however  much  one  tried.  So  come  along 
down  to  dinner.  That  unfortunate  steward  has  been 
banging  that  tin  pan  he  calls  a  gong  this  half -hour 
back.  Look  here,  Violet,  I'll  bet  you  a  pair  of  gloves 
that  as  Kettle's  out  of  the  way  that  Scotch  engineer 
takes  us  under  his  kind  patronage,  and  that  his  own 
official  chief  looks  blue  murder  at  him  but  under  the 
baleful  glance  of  your  distinguished  eye  eats  his 
victuals  in  respectful  silence." 

Pooh  I  "  said  Miss  Chesterman,  "  you  don't  pro- 


(( 


RE-ENTER  THE  NORMAN  TOWERS      155 

vide  yourself  with  gloves  at  my  expense  by  obvious 
tricks  like  that.  Kindly  remember  I  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  being  introduced  to  Mr.  McTodd's  little 
ways  long  before  you  had  the  felicity  of  his  acquaint- 
ance." 

But  Mr.  McTodd,  as  it  happened,  was  not  in  the 
saloon  when  the  pair  sat  themselves  down  to  table. 
He  was  in  the  alleyway  outside  the  steward's  pantry, 
commenting  to  Miss  Dubbs  on  the  pleasantness  of 
the  night,  the  real  smoothness  of  the  sea  (in  spite  of 
the  deceptive  look  of  heavy  swell)  and  the  general 
desirableness  of  boat  trips. 

"  A  junk  like  this,"  said  Mr.  McTodd,  "  unless  very 
efficiently  looked  after  in  the  engine-room,  always 
strikes  me  as  here  and  there  unsafe.  But  for  real 
security  give  me  a  sound,  diagonal,  teak-built  surf- 
boat,  with  just  enough  leak  in  her  seams  to  keep  her 
sweet.  You  can't  sink  a  craft  like  that.  You  may 
even  fling  her  ashore  if  you  like,  and  with  a  bit  of 
strength  you  can  get  her  off  again,  equal  to  new. 
And  with  biscuit,  and  a  fair  wind,  and  a  small  keg 
of  whisky  you  can  go  round  the  world  in  her.  Weel, 
I  was  going  into  supper  —  dinner  I  should  say  — 
but  I've  lost  my  appetite.  I've  been  packing  glands 
all  day,  and  the  smell's  injurious  to  the  mucous  mem- 
brane. I'd  take  it  as  kind  if  you'd  join  me  in  a  pasear 
along  the  lower  deck." 

The  trade-wind  freshened  till  it  blew  a  gale,  and 
the  little  Wangaroo,  a  small  speck  in  that  great  tur- 
moil of  water,  with  her  engines  slowed  down  till  they 


156     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

just  held  her  in  position,  rolled,  and  bucked,'  and 
plunged,  and  pitched,  till  more  than  one  expert 
thought  that  she  would  heave  her  masts  overboard. 
Everything  on  board  of  her,  from  coals  and  shovels, 
to  dinner  plates  and  hair-brushes,  kept  up  its  own 
separate  noisy  dance,  and  even  the  most  hardened  of 
her  human  complement  was  nauseated  with  her  dizzy 
lunging. 

"  A  man,"  said  Mr.  McTodd,  as  he  placed  thermo- 
metric  fingers  on  the  thrust-block  bearings  to  make 
sure  that  the  racing  propeller  shaft  was  not  heating 
them  unduly,  "  a  man  would  need  the  bowels  of  a 
sea-gull  to  stand  this  sort  of  merry-go-round  un- 
moved. I  wish  one  of  those  poets  who  blether  about 
the  cradle  of  the  deep  would  come  below  here  and 
try  the  effect  of  being  rocked  in  the  cradle  of  this 
three-by-five  shaft  tunnel." 

"  Those  that  go  down  to  the  sea  In  steamships," 
said  the  chief  engineer,  "  see  the  wonders  of  the 
deep.  McTodd,  I'll  trouble  you  to  come  out  of  that 
rabbit  run,  and  give  me  a  hand  with  this  condenser. 
She's  coughing  like  a  sick  Hindu  again,  and  I  expect 
the  mate'd  have  a  fit  if  I  told  him  we  were  within 
an  inch  of  a  breakdown  any  minute,  and  he'd  better 
make  his  preparations  to  heave  to  under  sail.  Be 
careful,  man,  now.  I'd  hate  to  have  you  inconveni- 
ence me  by  getting  killed  by  that  walking-beam." 

Night  dragged  through,  and  day  came,  and  still  the 
reinforced  trade  blew  with  unabated  force,  and  the 
little  steamboat  continued  her  dizzy  dance.     The  wind 


RE-ENTER  THE  NORMAN  TOWERS     157 

blew  hot  now  instead  of  chill,  and  presently  (as  the 
sun  climbed  higher)  gave  one  the  idea  that  it  had 
been  passed  through  a  super-heating  apparatus  before 
it  was  let  loose  on  the  Wangaroo.  It  was  laden,  too, 
with  a  fine  grit  which  lodged  in  all  the  steamer's 
crannies  on  deck  and  below,  in  the  morning  coffee, 
in  the  eyes,  in  the  bearings  of  the  machinery,  in 
Miss  Chesterman's  black  hair,  in  the  apple  tart  which 
the  cook  baked  for  luncheon,  and  (this  most  emphati- 
cally) in  the  innermost  mechanism  of  everybody's 
temper. 

But  when  at  last  the  blazing  afternoon  drew  to  a 
close,  the  wind  eased,  and  the  sand-storm  dropped ; 
and  on  the  edge  of  night  the  surf -boat  was  sighted 
putting  out  from  behind  a  shoulder  of  the  land. 

It  seemed  to  the  women  who  watched,  that  no  small 
boat  could  live  in  that  run  of  sea,  but  she  held  stolidly 
on,  her  oars  like  the  legs  of  some  uncouth  insect 
beating  the  water  rhythmically.  The  faces  of  her 
people,  when  they  came  near  enough  to  be  seen,  were 
woodenly  unconcerned;  and  when  the  acrobatic  feat 
of  getting  her  alongside,  hooking  on,  and  hauling  her 
up  to  davits  had  to  be  performed,  one  might  have 
taken  it  (from  the  looks  of  the  actors)  to  be  an 
ordinary  concern  of  every-day  life,  instead  of  one  of 
the  smartest  pieces  of  sea  juggling  on  record. 

"  By  God !  Skipper,"  said  Sir  George,  "  you've 
given  us  all  a  bad  fright.  I  never  thought  you'd  get 
on  board  again  in  one  piece.     The  sea's  awful." 

"  I  take  the  sea  as  I  find  it,  sir,  and  don't  complain. 


158     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

My  boat  crew's  passably  efficient.  I  will  say  that  for 
them." 

"  Well,"  said  Sir  George,  rather  piqued,  "  if  we 
were  sick  with  anxiety,  I'd  like  to  point  out  you  don't 
look  too  brisk  yourself.  You  look  as  if  you'd  seen 
a  ghost." 

"If  there  were  such  things,  I'd  have  seen  one  surely. 
We've  found  your  steamboat,  sir.  You  remember 
her  name?  " 

"  You've  found  her,  have  you  ?  Well,  now,  that's 
capital  hearing,  and  almost  worth  all  we've  gone 
through.  Her  name,  do  you  say?  Was  it  washed 
out  or  something?  Her  name?  I  suppose  I  must 
have  come  across  it  somewhere.  It  wasn't  in  Fred's 
letter,  of  course.  Oh,  no,  I  remember  my  solicitors 
dug  it  out  for  me.  But  I'm  afraid.  I've  forgotten  it; 
I've  a  rotten  memory  for  names.  However,  if  it's  of 
importance,  we  can  easily  turn  it  up.  I've  got  their 
letter  among  the  other  papers  in  my  despatch-box 
down  in  my  room." 

"  I  can  tell  you  her  name,  sir.  She's  the  old  Nor- 
man Tozvers.  Her  master.  Captain  Farnish,  with  his 
wife,  brought  me  up  from  the  time  I  was  a  little  kid 
of  two  years  old,  and  those  two  were  about  the  best 
friends  I  had  got  in  the  world,  and  better  friends  than 
most  men  ever  had.  Captain  Farnish,  I  suppose,  is 
drowned,  and  seeing  what's  happened  to  his  ship, 
that's  the  best  thing  that  could  occur  to  him.  But  as 
for  ghosts,  if  there  were  such  things,  I  should  have 
seen  his  when  I  went  on  board.     In  the  chart  house 


RE-ENTER  THE  NORMAN  TOWERS     159 

there  was  a  red  velvet  chair  with  a  caster  off  that 
I've  known  for  years,  and  the  old  lady's  portrait,  and 
his  pipe  —  his  frowsy  old  meerschaum  pipe  —  I  say 
his  pipe  —  sir,  I  mean  his  pipe!  If  you'll  excuse  me, 
I  will  go  to  my  room.     I  feel  I  need  a  bit  of  sleep." 


CHAPTER  XI 

DISENGAGEMENT 

4CT  'M  dreadfully  sorry,"  said  Sir  George  next 
-*■  morning,  "  that  I  didn't  think  of  telling  you 
the  steamer's  name.  It  didn't  seem  to  me  important, 
and,  in  fact,  as  I've  told  you,  I  forgot  it.  I  knew, 
of  course,  the  details  of  my  sister's  escapade  when  she 
met  you  first,  but  the  names  of  the  boats  never  came 
into  the  tale;  one  was  German  and  the  other  British, 
and  that's  all  the  details  I  got ;  and  until  you  returned 
aboard  here  off  that  ghastly  surf -boat,  and  scared  us 
all  out  of  our  wits  last  night,  she'd  never  had  the 
curiosity  to  inquire  the  name  of  the  ship  my  unlucky 
cousin  had  interested  us  in.  It  all  sounds  perfectly 
impossible,  of  course  — " 

"  But  as  you  know  by  this  time,"  Miss  Chesterman 
cut  in,  "  what  a  dear  old  muddler  my  brother  is  over 
business  matters,  I'm  sure  you'll  understand  how  it 
came  about." 

"  Miss,"  said  Captain  Kettle,  "  and,  sir,  I'm  grateful 
for  what  you  say.  I  was  a  good  deal  upset  last  night. 
But  I  don't  see  that  even  if  I'd  known  that  it  was  the 
poor  old  Towers  we  were  after  it  would  have  made  any 
real  difference.  With  the  knowledge  in  my  pocket  I 
couldn't  have  looked  for  her  more  keenly,  nor  would 

1 60 


DISENGAGEMENT  i6i 

my  duty  to  my  owner  have  made  me  look  less  hard, 
and  there  you  are.  I  should  have  taken  on  the  billet 
just  the  same,  and  glad  of  it,  even  if  you'd  told  me 
the  old  girl's  name  that  first  night  at  the  Mason's 
Arms,  back  there  in  Foston.  It's  been  a  jar  to  find 
that  my  old  sea-daddy's  drowned,  and  me  thinking 
him  sailing  the  seas,  with  his  false  teeth  in  his  chart- 
room  drawer  as  merry  as  ever ;  but  I  guess  sailors  are 
paid  to  drown  when  necessary,  and  there,  if  you  please, 
we'll  leave  it.  Question  is  now,  taking  this  steam- 
boat in  through  those  reefs.  It's  going  to  be  a  job 
and  a  half." 

"  Can't  you  manage  it?  " 

"  Sir,  with  respect,  I  can  take  any  steamboat  that's 
built  through  any  channel  where  there's  water  enough 
to  float  her.  But  when  I'm  put  to  being  my  own 
pilot,  I've  got  to  survey  the  channel  first." 

"  But  surely  you  know  the  way  now,  after  being  in 
and  out?" 

"  There's  a  vast  of  difference,  miss,  between  dodg- 
ing through  in  a  rowboat  that  will  float  in  two  feet 
of  water,  and  taking  in  a  fine  craft  like  this  " — Cap- 
tain Kettle  cast  his  eye  proudly  over  his  small  com- 
mand — "  that  draws  thirteen  foot  two.  There  must 
be  a  channel  somewhere  because,  as  you  know,  the  old 
Towers  blew  in  without  touching.  But  the  whole 
place  is  a  regular  stone-yard,  and  I  tell  you  freely  that 
how  my  surf-boat  escaped  getting  smashed  a  good 
score  of  times  beats  all  my  experience." 

"  Is  there  such  a  thing  as  a  tide  here  ?  " 


i62     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  Water  runs  in  places  like  a  mill-race,  sir." 

"  Presumbly  the  Norman  Towers  must  have  gone 
under,  over,  or  through  the  reefs.  Perhaps  when  my 
cousin  was  here  it  was  the  top  of  a  spring  tide  that 
helped  her  over." 

"  That  would  help,  of  course.  But  my  idea  is 
there's  a  proper  fairway,  and  there's  nothing  to  do 
but  take  the  ground,  square  by  square,  in  that  surf- 
boat,  and  plot  out  the  whole  scheme  of  the  banks  and 
reefs  with  as  many  cross-bearings  as  one  can  get. 
Then  with  some  leading  marks  built  ashore,  and  per- 
haps a  buoy  or  two  if  the  channels  get  very  twisted, 
I'll  be  able,  if  the  weather  gives  us  a  fair  smooth  sea, 
to  take  her  in." 

"  And  how  long  will  this  entertainment  take  ?  " 

"  A  week,  sir,  at  the  very  lowest  estimate,  and  per- 
haps two  if  it  breezes  up  again.  If  it  comes  to  narrow 
soundings,  a  man  can't  get  accurate  depths  when  he 
doesn't  know  if  the  sea's  lifting  them  a  couple  of 
fathoms  above  the  normal,  or  dropping  him  twelve 
feet  beneath  it." 

"  Good  lord,  Skipper,  you  can't  expect  us  to  stay 
and  be  seasick  here  for  another  mortal  week." 

"  I  was  going  to  say,  sir,  that  we're  low  on  coal, 
and  have  made  a  big  hole  in  the  water  and  stores.  It 
would  be  best  if  you'd  take  the  Wangaroo  back  to  the 
islands  for  bunkers  and  provisions.  You'll  be  back 
here  again  before  I'm  ready.  And  you'll  find  Mr. 
Trethewy  a  perfectly  competent  navigator,  and  you'll 
not  miss  the  six  men  I  want  to  keep." 


DISENGAGEMENT  163 

"  And  leave  you  here  to  grill  in  that  twopenny- 
boat?  My  dear  fellow,  that  comes  inside  the  cruelty 
clause.  We  couldn't  sleep  for  thinking  of  you. 
Don't  you  agree,  Violet  ?  " 

"  I  shall  take  along  a  spare  awning  and  a  couple 
of  spars  to  make  a  tent,  and  I  marked  down  in  my  eye 
an  island  that's  just  the  place  for  a  camp.  There 
didn't  seem  to  be  fuel,  so  we  shall  need  a  couple  of 
bags  of  coal,  but  with  those  and  rations  we  shall  be 
comfortable  enough  till  you  return;  and  indeed,  sir, 
if  you  come  to  think  the  business  out,  there's  no  other 
way  for  it." 

So  the  scheme  was  agreed  to,  and  Kettle  fitted  his 
boat,  and  went  below  to  say  good-by  to  Miss  Dubbs 
before  making  his  adieus  to  her  employers  on  deck. 

But  that  stately  young  person  gave  him  a  very  chilly 
reception.  She  was  vastly  civil,  one  might  almost  say 
offensively  so,  but  as  far  as  a  temperature  of  some 
eighty-three  degrees  Farenheit  would  permit,  her  con- 
versation was  ice. 

A  sentence  or  two  passed  before  Captain  Kettle 
observed  this.  As  has  been  recorded  before,  their 
mode  of  addressing  one  another  w^as  always  elegantly 
formal,  and  at  first  he  thought  that  the  lady's  remarks 
were  built  on  this  model,  and  not  studiously  designed 
to  denote  oft'ense. 

But  presently  she  left  him  beyond  possible  doubt  as 
to  her  meaning. 

"  I  would  have  you  understand,  Captain,  that  I  am 
.not  jour  dear,  or  anything  so  familiar.     To  you,  I  am 


i'64     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

either  '  Miss  Dubbs  ',  or  *  stewardess  ',  whichever  you 
prefer." 

"  I  told  y'ou  in  Las  Palmas  harbor  how  awkward  it 
would  be  if  we  were  serving  together  on  the  same  ship, 
and  I  was  captain." 

"  You  did,  and  it  has  been  very  awkward.  I  felt  I 
intruded,  though  Miss  Violet,  to  give  her  her  due, 
never  let  me  see  she  thought  so.  However,  when  the 
pair  of  you  get  back  to  the  Norman  Towers  you  will 
be  able  to  renew  old  scenes." 

"  I  might  have  told  you  before  about  meeting  her 
out  West,"  said  Kettle  miserably,  "  but  I  thought  that 
was  all  passed  and  done  with,  and  never  expected  to 
see  her  again.  As  you  know,  it  was  a  perfect  surprise 
to  me,  her  coming  to  Grand  Canary.  You  were  a 
surprise,  too,  for  that  matter." 

Miss  Dubbs'  elaborate  black  hair  seemed  fairly  to 
bristle.  "  Ah,  now  we  get  to  the  truth.  Captain.  I 
was  a  surprise  if  you  like.  Plain,  indeed,  it  was  you 
didn't  expect  to  see  me,  and  you  never  disguised  your 
disappointment.  I  was  the  little  intruder,  wasn't  I? 
And  you  thought  you  were  going  to  pick  it  up  again 
with  Miss  Violet  where  you'd  left  it  off,  and  play  her 
the  Moonlight  Sonata  on  the  accordion  when  Sir 
George  was  having  his  after-supper  sleep?  Oh,  don't 
tell  me.  Haven't  I  seen  you  walking  her  out  along 
the  decks,  and  catching  her  by  the  elbow  when  she 
made  believe  she  was  losing  her  footing  through  the 
roll?  Liver  wing  at  dinner  and,  'quartermaster, 
ibring  aft  deck  chair  for  Miss  Chesterman'?     That's 


DISENGAGEMENT  165 

all  right.  That's  her  due.  That's  what  you're  paid 
for.  But  when  it  comes  to  pipe-claying  her  white 
shoes  with  your  own  fingers,  that's  the  limit.  It's  no 
use  denying  it.  I  saw  you  at  'em  through  your  own 
port-hole.  Even  a  stewardess  must  come  on  deck 
sometimes." 

"  I  deny  nothing  that  I  have  done.  I  pipe-clayed 
the  shoes  because  the  steward  can't  do  it  decently,  and 
won't  learn.     I'll  clean  yours,  too,  if  you'll  let  me." 

"  No  one  touches  my  shoes  but  my  husband,  which 
is  what  you'll  never  be.  Here's  your  engagement 
ring." 

"  You'd  better  keep  it." 

"If  you'd  prefer  I  should  give  it  to  the  other  girl 
instead  of  to  you  just  say  so.  Pah ! "  said  Miss 
Dubbs,  swelling  out  her  chest,  "  you  can't  think  how 
I  despise  you,  Captain.  No,  don't  try  to  stop  me ;  I'm 
going  to  my  room." 

It  was  then,  with  the  dismal  knowledge  that  the 
matter  of  his  engagement  had  gone  hopelessly  awry, 
that  Captain  Kettle  in  a  surf-boat  laden  with  men, 
coal  bags,  meat  tins,  water  beakers,  biscuit  sacks,  rifles, 
rope,  ammunition,  canvas,  sounding  leads,  and  other 
cargo,  put  off  from  the  Wangaroo,  which  forthwith 
turned  her  tail  on  him  and  steamed  away  to  sea. 
Twelve  very  strenuous  days  passed  over  his  head  be- 
fore he  was  able  to  rejoin  her. 


CHAPTER  XII 

A    CHANNEL   TO    THE    LAGOON 

A  FTER  Strenuous  battling  with  seas  flogged  by 
•^  ^  the  trade,  the  Wangaroo  steamed  up  once  more 
to  her  station  off  the  African  coast,  and  hooted  im- 
pressively on  her  siren  to  announce  arrival.  That 
enormous  siren,  replacing  one  of  the  normal  caliber 
for  a  seven-hundred-fifty-ton  boat,  was  an  extrava- 
gance which  Captain  Kettle  almost  coyly  had  wheedled 
out  of  the  steamboat's  canny  owner  before  leaving  the 
Tyne. 

A  stained  red  ensign  on  the  top  of  a  pole  which  was 
perched  on  the  crown  of  a  striped  sand-dune  blew  out 
by  way  of  answer,  but  the  boat  did  not  come  out  on 
that  day  or  any  of  the  three  succeeding  days.  At 
intervals  Miss  Chesterman  said  she  heard  firing,  but 
her  brother,  who  prided  himself  on  knowing  a  gunshot 
when  he  heard  one,  said  that  the  noise  was  caused  by 
the  surf  on  the  abounding  reefs.  The  black-haired 
Miss  Dubbs  strained  her  eyes  toward  the  shore  till 
black  shadows  grew  beneath  them,  but  what  opinions 
she  had  on  the  matter  she  kept  to  herself. 

On  the  twelfth  day  the  surf-boat  came  out,  handled 
very  dashingly  under  sail,  ran  with  much  smartness 

1 66 


A  CHANNEL  TO  THE  LAGOON        167 

alongside,  and  emitted  a  spruce  and  sun-scorched  Cap- 
tain Kettle. 

After  salutations  had  passed,  a  meeting  was  called 
in  the  privacy  of  the  chart  house. 

"  Miss,"  said  the  little  sailor,  "  I'm  free  to  own  I'm 
sorry  to  see  you.  I've  been  hoping  all  these  days 
you'd  have  stayed  behind  in  Las  Palmas.  And  now, 
sir,  the  best  advice  I  can  give  is  that  we  run  back  and 
leave  Miss  Violet  where  she  ought  to  be." 
"  What's  wrong  with  the  Norman  Tozvers?  " 
"  Just  this,  sir.  The  Moors  think  she's  their 
ship." 

"  And  you're  going  to  let  It  rest  at  that?  " 
Captain  Kettle,  as  far  as  the  action  of  the  sun  on  his 
complexion   would   allow,   flushed.     "  I   thought,    sir, 
you  knew  me  better.     The  Norman  Tozvers  is  your 
ship,  and  you're  going  to  have  her  to  realize  on,  as 
per  contract,  but  there  may  possibly  be  a  little  trouble 
before  we  get  her  out,  and  I  thought  better  that  Miss 
Violet  should  be  spared  the  seeing  it." 
"  Danger,  Captain,  do  you  mean  ?  " 
"  No,  miss.     I  prefer  to  call  it  trouble." 
"  Well,  if  you're  appealing  to  me,  my  answer  is  that 
I  shan't  go  back.     And  if  you're  trying  to  influence 
my  brother,  he  will  tell  you  he's  attempted  ever  since 
I  was  in  short  frocks  to  make  me  do  as  he  liked,  and 
has   invariably    failed.     So   unless   you've   other   and 
stronger  arguments  to  bring  to  bear,  I'm  afraid  you 
must  still  continue  to  put  up  with  me  as  a  member  of 
your  crew.     Stewardess,   aren't   I,   by  the  way,   the 


i68     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

same  as  Du on  the  same  official  footing,  I  mean, 

as  Miss  Dubbs  ?  " 

"  I  didn't  see  any  other  capacity  under  which  to  sign 
you  on,  miss.  The  Board  of  Trade  is  very  strict  in 
these  matters,  and  if  you  don't  conform  in  the  proper 
way  and  put  in  the  fool  entries  they  want  on  the  crew 
sheet,  and  can  go  to  sleep  over,  there's  a  correspond- 
ence started  that'll  last  a  ship's  master  half  a  life- 
time." 

"  Hadn't  you  better  tell  us  exactly  what  you  did  find 
ashore  ?  " 

"  That  would  be  the  best  way,  sir.  Well,  to  begin 
with,  what  you  see  from  here  is  not  the  coast,  but  a 
chain  of  small  islands  and  reefs  and  sand-banks  run- 
ning along  parallel  to  the  edge  of  the  mainland,  some- 
times a  hundred  yards  away  from  it,  sometimes  two 
miles.  The  space  between  where  we  are  now  and  the 
main  opening  is  dotted  with  sand  and  lumps  of  stone 
just  about  as  thick  as  the  black  squares  on  a  draught- 
board, but  not  a  bit  regular.  How  the  old  Tozvers 
blew  in  there  without  touching  —  or,  if  she  touched, 
without  breaking  up  —  is  more  than  I  can  tell  you. 
If  I  was  an  imaginative  man  I  should  say  that  the 
simplest  explanation  was  that  she  grew  wings  and  flew 
in  over  the  top.  As  I'm  not  that,  the  only  thing  I  can 
think  of  is,  the  Lord  saw  it  was  best  for  some  one  that 
she  should  get  inside,  and  He  sent  a  leading  wind,  and 
steered  her  in  Himself.  However,  there  she's  got, 
and  I  must  say  that  as  far  as  the  eye  can  tell  slie  seems 
as  sound  as  a  bottle." 


A  CHANNEL  TO  THE  LAGOON        169 

"  But  didn't  you  get  on  board  to  make  a  full  ex- 
amination? " 

"  I  did  not,  miss,  this  time.  The  Moors  had  taken 
possession,  and  as  there  were  at  least  six  hundred  of 
them  on  her  decks  when  we  hove  in  sight,  and  as  I'd 
only  six  of  a  crew  in  the  surf -boat,  I  concluded  to 
leave  them  where  they  were  for  the  time  being." 

"  And  they  shot  at  you  ?  There,  George,  I  told  you 
those  were  shots  we  heard." 

"  The  N^  or  man  Towers  has  a  couple  of  brass  signal- 
guns,  miss,  and  they  must  have  brought  some  of  their 
own  powder  on  board,  and  used  stone  for  shot.  I 
suppose  the  noise  and  the  powder  smell  pleased  them, 
and  the  stones  certainly  didn't  hit  us,  so  all  was  well. 
If  there'd  been  need,  of  course  I  should  have  gone  on 
board,  but  as  we  were,  so  to  speak,  merely  a  recon- 
noitering  expedition,  and  our  job  was  to  do  a  survey 
of  the  channel,  I  concluded  to  let  them  enjoy  their  war- 
dance  in  peace.  All  the  same,  I've  got  the  idea  there's 
a  white  man  directing  them." 

"How's  that?" 

"  They're  showing  more  savvy  than  it's  good  for 
niggers  to  possess.  And  they're  looking  ahead,  and 
that's  a  thing  clear  outside  the  ordinary  colored  man's 
contract.  What  do  you  suppose  there  would  be  on 
board  that  any  Moor  would  care  to  loot?  A  few 
movables  that  would  perhaps  add  up  to  five  or  six  hun- 
dred pounds  in  value.  And  then  when  he'd  got  those, 
and  started  to  break  the  port-hole  glasses,  and  the 
gage  glasses,  and  the  few  skyliglit  glasses,  and  smash 


170     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

the  door  panels  out  of  sheer  liglit-heartechiess,  and  to 
throw  overboard  hatch  covers  and  wheel  gratings,  and 
other  trifles  they  didn't  want,  what  would  be  the  bill 
for  damage  to  an  old  ore  tramp  like  the  Norman 
Towers?  Call  it  another  five  hundred  pounds.  Well, 
and  after  that,  and  when  they'd  got  tired  of  trampling 
mud  off  their  splay  toes  into  the  saloon  carpet,  and 
had  looked  through  the  reserve  coal  bunker  to  make 
sure  that  wasn't  the  treasure  room,  what  would  be  the 
next  move  ?  Go  home  with  what  they'd  got,  and  swap 
lies  about  it  round  the  kitchen  fire?  That  would  be 
the  ordinary  colored  man's  scheme  of  enjoyment. 
And  if  you  asked  him  if  he  wouldn't  take  the  steamer 
and  her  cargo  along  while  he  was  there,  he'd  say  he 
was  much  obliged,  but  really  he'd  got  no  immediate 
use  for  her.     Do  you  follow  my  argument  ?  " 

"  Yes,  that  seems  all  right.  But  aren't  they  doing 
as  you  say  ?  " 

"  They're  not,  sir.  They're  arranging  to  hold  the 
Norman  Towers  for  keeps,  and  I  tell  you  straight 
we're  going  to  have  a  tough  job  in  getting  her  away 
from  them." 

"  But  in  wonder's  name,  what  do  they  want  her 
for?" 

"  That's  what's  bothering  me,  sir.  That's  why  I 
seem  to  smell  out  the  white  man  with  the  head-piece 
at  the  back  of  this  pack  of  darkies,  though  even  what 
his  game  is  I  can't  guess.  I  tell  you  I'd  be  a  lot  easier 
if  I  could,  because  then  one  could  fix  up  a  plan  to  up- 


A  CHANNEL  TO  THE  LAGOON        171 

set  it,  whereas  as  it  is  he's  getting  in  all  his  moves 
undisturbed." 

Sir  George  squared  his  big  shoulders.  "  Can  you 
get  this  boat  in  moderately  close  alongside?" 

"  Right  up  against  her  plates,  if  you  want  her 
there." 

"  Well,  what's  wrong  with  telling  your  beauties 
here  with  the  rifles  to  pump  lead  into  every  one  we  see 
on  the  Norman  Towers'  deck  till  those  that  are  left 
get  sick  of  it  and  clear  off?  Then  we  proceed  to 
make  fast  a  tow-rope  and  pull  her  out,  and  so  across 
to  Las  Palmas,  where  we  sell  her,  for  cash  down,  to 
some  enterprising  juggins  who's  in  need  of  an  antique 
steamboat  and  a  cargo  of  copper  concentrates,  and  live 
happily  ever  afterward  on  the  proceeds.  Sounds 
beautifully  simple." 

*'  Far  too  simple,  sir,"  said  the  little  sailor  em- 
phatically. "  I'm  just  convinced  that  there's  a  bad 
snag  waiting  for  us  to  run  ourselves  against  it  some- 
where. And  will  you  please  tell  me  what's  the  mean- 
ing of  this :  they're  quarrying." 

**  Quarrying  what  ?  " 

"  Stone  as  far  as  I  could  see.  And  it  didn't  look 
like  a  mine  either.  There  was  a  great  chocolate- 
colored  slab  of  rock  sticking  up  out  of  the  beach  just 
beyond  where  the  Towers  was  lying,  and  they  were  as 
busy  on  it  as  a  hive  of  bees.  There  must  have  been 
seven  or  eight  hundred  on  that  job,  and  they  stuck  to 
it  like  little  men  all  the  time  daylight  lasted.     They'd 


172     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

a  night  shift,  too,  because  we  heard  them  working, 
though  how  many  there  were  on  that  it  was  too  dark 
to  see.  Mark  you,  it  wasn't  work  they  were  used  to  ; 
they  none  of  them  seemed  to  have  much  skill  in  nav vy- 
ing; and  though  they'd  got  a  heap  of  iron  bars  and 
shovels  from  the  stoke-hold,  they  seemed  to  prefer 
gathering  fallen  stone  from  the  screes,  to  splitting  off 
fresh  chunks  from  the  face.  Chocolate-colored  stone 
it  was;  rummy-looking  stuff." 

"  Perhaps  it's  iron  ore  and  they're  filling  the  Tow- 
ers down  to  her  marks  with  it,  as  a  present  to  the 
salvors  for  their  kindness  in  coming  to  remove  the 
eyesore  from  the  local  landscape." 

"  Well,  it  might  be  iron  ore,  or  copper,  or  gold,  or 
just  plain  stone ;  I'm  not  a  miner,  and  couldn't  say ;  but 
they  weren't  making  any  attempt  to  bring  it  on  board. 
They  were  simply  piling  it  in  heaps  along  the  beach." 

"  Did  they  look  as  if  they  were  building  a  fort  with 
it?" 

"  I  thought  of  that,  but  couldn't  see  a  trace  of  it. 
If  they'd  intended  putting  up  a  building,  one  thinks 
they'd  have  piled  their  heaps  four-square,  so  as  to  be 
handy  for  the  masons.  But  there  was  no  arrange- 
ment like  that.  The  heaps  were,  as  I've  said,  all 
strung  out  in  a  line  along  the  beach  behind  the  Norman 
Toilers,  and  there  was  no  attempt  at  sorting  out  the 
stone,  or  squaring  up  the  chunks.  They  might  have 
been  dumped  there  for  road  making." 

Sir  George  Chesterman  was  impressed.  "  Violet,  I 
wish  to  heaven  you  were  back  at  Las  Palmas." 


A  CHANNEL  TO  THE  LAGOON        173 


(( 


And  I'm  devoutly  glad  I'm  not.  Do  you  think 
I'm  not  curious,  too  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I'll  admit  your  curiosity.  But  I'm  getting  to 
be  of  Captain  Kettle's  opinion:  the  one  thing  we  are 
reasonably  sure  of  arriving  at  out  of  all  this,  is  the 
unexpected.  He  said  those  fellows  were  as  busy  as 
a  hive  of  bees.  It  will  probably  occur  to  your  wisdom 
that  bees  sometimes  sting,  and  when  they  do  they  can 
be  disgustingly  dangerous.  I  remember  once,  when 
you  were  a  small  child,  you  must  needs  stir  up  a  hive 
in  the  Hall  garden  with  a  walking-stick.  I  remember 
the  way  you  got  stung  about  the  legs.  Remarkably 
fine  pair  of  legs,  too,  you  had  at  that  time." 

"  As  I  have  now,  and  as  they  suit  me  down  to  the 
ground  you  needn't  refer  to  them  further.  But  if  you 
know  bees  are  going  to  sting,  it's  very  easy  to  take  pre- 
cautions, and  then  they  can't  get  at  you." 

"  I  tried  being  a  bee  master  once,"  said  Sir  George, 
pulling  the  big  retriever's  ear. 

"  Ah,  sir,  I  envy  you  there.  I  always  hope  to  retire 
from  the  sea  some  day  and  take  up  a  country  life." 

"  Then  you  take  my  tip  and  let  bees  alone.  I  al- 
ways preferred  to  let  the  other  expert  handle  them 
after  I'd  made  the  first  few  attempts." 

"  I  think  it  would  be  most  comfortable,  sir,  if  you'd 
allow  me  just  to  run  you  and  the  ladies  back  to  Las 
Palmas  first  before  we  tackled  the  job." 

Sir  George  Chesterman  lay  back  in  his  chair  and 
laughed.  "  My  good  Skipper,"  he  said,  "  you're  dan- 
gling the  bait  of  a  real  lively  new  sensation  before  my 


174     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

nose,  and  then  you  propose  to  whisk  it  away,  and  put 
me  back  again  in  cotton  wook  Oh,  Diamond,  Dia- 
mond, you  little  know  what  you  have  done," 

Captain  Kettle  pulled  rather  nervously  at  his  red 
beard.     "  Then  am  I  to  understand,  sir,  that  you  — " 

"  I'm  here  to  watch  this  business  put  through,  and 
to  help  as  far  as  I  can.  You're  the  better  man  of  the 
two,  Captain,  in  every  way,  and  you  are  in  command 
now  and  I  wish  you  to  remain  in  command.  I  here 
and  now  resign  my  billet  of  idle  passenger  and  critic 
of  cocktails.  I  ask  to  serve  under  you,  and  am  ready 
to  take  up  any  job  you  think  I'm  capable  of,  from  per- 
sonal aide-de-camp  down  to  assistant  cook.  Miss 
Chesterman  also,  if  I  know  anything  about  her,  will  do 
every  ounce  she  can,  and  if,  unfortunately,  any  one 
gets  hurt,  well  I  believe  she  once  picked  up  some  hos- 
pital training  the  month  she  tired  of  the  sensation  of 
being  sweet  on  a  doctor.  The  ship  and  all  that's  in- 
side her  is  at  your  entire  disposal,  and  if  you  want 
another  ship  and  more  men,  say  the  word,  and  I'll  get 
them  for  you.  I'd  no  idea  when  I  left  England  we 
w^ere  going  to  come  up  against  what  looks  uncom- 
monly like  a  private  war,  but,  by  God,  now  we're  in 
for  it  I'm  going  to  see  it  through." 

"  The  blood  of  the  Chestermans  is  evidently 
stirred,"  said  Violet.  "  I  call  upon  you  all  to  hear  me 
deliberately  utter  the  word  Hooroo.  Captain  Kettle, 
I  echo  my  newly  awakened  brother's  words.  I  am 
yours  to  command." 


A  CHANNEL  TO  THE  LAGOON        175 

"  Sir  and  miss,"  said  the  little  sailor,  "  you  shall 
never  regret  the  confidence  shown  in  me,  and  I'll  pull 
that  steamboat  out,  if  I  have  to  murder  half  the  niggers 
in  Africa  to  get  her  clear.  It's  not  business,  of 
course,  to  say  such  a  thing,  but  a  job  like  this  always 
comes  in  sweeter  to  one  when  it  turns  out  a  lot  harder 
than  one  had  any  decent  reason  to  expect.  I  tell  you 
there  were  nights  in  the  surf-boat  when  we  crept  in  to 
see  what  they  were  up  to,  when  I  could  have  sung  to 
think  what  a  hard  nut  that  white  man  ashore  was  bak- 
ing for  me  to  crack." 

"  But  I  thought  you  were  to  make  a  camp  on  one 
of  the  islets,  and  sleep  in  a  tent?  " 

"  That  was  the  scheme,  miss,  but  you  see  with  these 
Moors  all  over  the  place  it  occurred  to  me  that  they 
could  either  swim  or  raft  themselves  across  to  the 
islands  at  the  other  side  of  the  lagoon  if  they  felt 
that  way  inclined,  and  it's  unpleasant  having  one's 
sleep  disturbed.  So  we  lived  it  out  in  the  boat,  and 
the  watch  below  had  the  floor  boards.  Those  bags  of 
coal  weren't  wasted  either.  We  used  them  as  anchors 
for  three  of  our  mark  buoys.  You  see,  I  didn't  think 
it  was  worth  while  to  go  ashore  and  build  those  lead- 
ing marks  I  spoke  about,  because  it  was  as  likely  as  not 
with  a  smart  white  man  to  put  them  up  to  it,  the  Moors 
would  pull  them  down  and  build  them  in  other  spots, 
so  that  any  one  relying  on  them  to  run  in  by  would 
pile  up  his  ship  on  some  reef  he'd  calculated  to  avoid. 
You  see,  the  trouble  about  the  shore  over  yonder  is 


176     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

that  it's  all  made  to  a  pattern,  with  no  outstanding  fea- 
tures that  one  can  pick  up  to  base  a  bearing  on." 

"  But  you  took  no  stove  on  the  boat.     How  did  you 
cook?" 

"We  didn't.  We  just  ate  our  tucker  as  it  came, 
and  were  glad  it  was  there.  But  I  must  say  the  hands 
did  get  riled  with  one  thing,  and  that  was  the  gulls. 
The  gulls  on  this  station  had  evidently  not  seen  a  boat 
before,  and  they  thought  we  were  in  trouble,  and 
would  presently  be  chop  for  them;  and  they  followed 
us  day  and  night  with  their  tired  flap-flapping,  or  else 
swimming  beside  the  boat,  never  winking,  never  sleep- 
ing, till  the  hands  began  to  lose  temper  and  want  to 
use  their  rifles.  Of  course,  I  wasn't  going  to  let  them 
waste  your  cartridges,  sir,  for  a  matter  of  sentiment, 
and  told  them  that  if  they  kept  alive,  which  was  what 
they  were  paid  for,  the  birds  wouldn't  want  to  pick 
their  eyes  out.  But  I  never  could  get  them  to  see  it 
that  way,  and  just  to  show  you  how  unreasonable 
hands  are  with  an  ofiicer,  I  may  say  that  I've  had  to 
attend  to  every  one  of  my  six  —  and  most  of  them 
more  than  once  —  just  because  they  were  scared  at 
seeing  those  birds  always  there,  and  always  staring  at 
them  with  those  shiny  unwinking  eyes." 

A  fireman  came  up :     "  Chief  engineer  wishes  me 
to  tell  you,  sir,  he's  got  steam  for  eight  knots." 

"Right,"   said  Captain   Kettle.     "Then,   as   all  is 
settled,  sir  and  miss,  I'll  take  her  in  at  once." 

There  is  a  much-abused  term  that  one  often  hears 
applied  to  mariners  that  such  an  one  is  a  "  daring  sea- 


A  CHANNEL  TO  THE  LAGOON        177 

man  ".  It  would  pain  me  to  see  that  label  put  to 
Captain  Kettle.  Plucky  he  was  to  the  ends  of  his 
fingers,  and  resourceful,  and  skilful,  and  when  noth- 
ing else  would  serve,  reckless.  But  he  was  never  a 
man  to  take  risks  with  any  vessel  under  his  command, 
when  those  risks  could  be  legitimately  avoided. 

He  knew  the  capabilities  of  the  Wangaroo  to  the 
last  ounce.  Under  his  command  she  had  been  tuned 
up  among  other  things  to  give  a  full  knot  more 
speed  than  she  had  logged  in  coming  down  the  North 
Sea.  Yet  (thanks  to  the  genius  of  her  designer)  she 
was  probably  the  unhandiest  little  thing  of  her  size 
afloat,  and  there  was  no  getting  over  the  fact  of  those 
unpremeditated  sheers  out  of  her  course.  When  the 
whim  seized  her,  and  from  no  other  ascertainable 
cause,  she  would  at  intervals,  and  without  the  slight- 
est warning,  take  a  sudden  lunge  to  starboard  from 
which  no  amount  of  helm  would  steady  her  until  she 
had  had  her  fling.  The  which  was  an  uncomfortable 
habit  when  one  was  navigating  her  down  a  narrow 
fairway. 

The  run  inshore  was  unnerving  enough  to  the  spec- 
tator. There  was  a  moderate  swell  running,  and 
though  the  bottle-green  water  did  not  break  unless  it 
was  especially  irritated,  here  and  there  little  annular 
gardens  of  surf  spoke  of  dangers  out  of  sight. 

As  they  drew  nearer  the  shore,  and  rose  them  to 
the  eye,  many  of  the  reefs  protruded,  and  the  pias- 
sage  grew  more  and  more  ugly.  Dog  teeth  of  rock 
suddenly  bit  their  way  through  smooth  oily  surfaces 


178     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

of  the  water,  and  as  suddenly  were  sheathed,  and  in 
other  places  smooth  whale-1  jacks  of  sand  were  for  a 
moment  uplifted  and  as  quickly  eclipsed. 

"  It  isn't  what  you  see  in  this  beastly  channel,"  Sir 
George  muttered  to  his  sister,  "  as  what  you  don't  see, 
that  make  the  real  dangers." 

"  It's  a  regular  maze,"  Violet  agreed.  "  I  can't 
think  how  any  one  can  thread  it.  What  would  hap- 
pen, do  you  suppose,  if  we  touched?  " 

"  The  odds  are,  I  should  say,  the  swell  would  break 
her  back  within  five  minutes,  and  we  should  either 
have  to  try  the  hotels  on  shore,  or  try  a  cruise  in  the 
boats.     Beginning  to  be  sorry  you  came,  old  lady?" 

"  I  wouldn't  miss  it  for  a  new  set  of  furs.  But 
if  we're  anxious,  what  must  any  one  responsible 
be?" 

"If  you  mean  the  skipper,  I've  just  walked  forrard 
till  I  could  get  a  look  up  at  him.  He's  stuck  there  on 
the  upper  bridge  looking  like  a  graven  image.  The 
man  at  the  wheel's  got  his  eyes  about  a  foot  out  of 
his  head,  and  that  fellow  Smith  that  he's  given  brevet 
rank  to  as  third  mate,  is  hanging  on  to  the  engine- 
room  telegraph  as  though  it  was  the  only  friend  he'd 
left  on  earth.  I  took  a  look  down  the  engine-room 
skylight  as  I  passed,  and  saw  the  old  chief  caressing 
the  throttle  with  his  own  fair  fingers,  and  the  great 
McTodd  in  pairson  standing  by  the  reversing  gear. 
Oh !  I  tell  you,  Violet,  everybody's  quite  up  to  the 
importance  of  what's  going  on,  and  ready  to  do  every 
inch  he  knows  if  he's  called  upon.     Great  Scot !  what's 


A  CHANNEL  TO  THE  LAGOON        179 

that?  Pooh,  it  was  only  the  backwash  of  thai  surf 
hitting  her.  By  the  way  the  old  tub  trembled,  I 
thought  she'd  bumped  on  a  rock," 

In  and  out,  first  to  starboard  and  then  to  port,  the 
Wangaroo  was  danced,  as  the  record  of  the  hidden 
channel  unreeled  itself  from  Captain  Kettle's  brain, 
and  was  transmitted  per  orders  and  human  hands  to 
the  powers  that  governed  her.  Twice  an  angle  was 
too  acute  for  her  to  turn  in  her  stride,  and  Kettle  had 
to  send  her  hard  astern  on  a  reversed  helm  to  get  her 
round. 

And  up  one  narrow  zigzag  he  backed  boldly  for  a 
whole  half-mile,  with  only  a  narrow  canal  of  deep 
water  to  allow  for  mistakes,  and  spouting  reefs  on 
either  beam  ready  to  account  for  the  smallest  error 
of  judgment  or  performance.  But  still  I  object  to 
the  word  daring.  It  was  merely  an  exhibition  of  iron 
nerve  accompanied  by  perfect  skill. 

The  water  grew  smoother  as  they  crept  inside  the 
shelter  of  the  outer  reefs,  and  the  channel  grew  more 
intricate. 

"  I  swear  no  steamboat  could  have  dodged  in  here," 
said  Sir  George,  after  Kettle  had  taken  the  IVangarob 
through  a  particularly  intricate  figure  of  eight,  "  with- 
out engines  and  a  human  crew  to  help  her." 

"  The  answer  to  that  statement  is  that  she  did,"  re- 
torted his  sister.  "What  I  can't  understand  is  how 
any  man  can  store  up  in  his  head  all  these  little  bits 
of  distances,  and  changes  of  course,  without  a  mark 
to  help  him  except  those  half-dozen  trumpery  buoys, 


i8o     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

and  with  prompt  shipwreck  as  a  penalty  for  the  least 
mistake." 

"  To  which  I  remark,"  was  the  brotherly  reply, 
"  that  your  own  pet  idol  is  doing  it  this  minute  before 
your  very  attractive  eyes,  so  don't  talk  rot.  Don't  you 
think  you'd  better  go  below  and  get  the  steward  to 
give  you  a  cup  of  tea?  " 

"  I  do  not  in  the  least.  But  I  suppose  that's  an 
intimation  that  you  think  we're  getting  to  the  end  of 
the  trip,  and  that  once  round  the  corner  our  African 
brothers  may  shoot  at  us." 

"  Yes  —  by  gad,  though,  Violet,  I  didn't  know  we 
were  so  close.  There's  the  Norman  Towers  opening 
out  from  behind  that  bluff.  Did  you  ever  see  any- 
thing coated  with  a  more  flawless  coat  of  rust?  By 
gad,  look  out !  " 

Instinctively  Sir  George  stepped  in  front  of  his  sis- 
ter, who  just  as  instinctively  took  hold  of  his  loose, 
baggy,  old  shooting-coat  by  the  rear  to  drag  him  aside. 

Then  there  came  to  them  the  shattering  roar  of  a 
brass  gun,  loaded  with  black  powder,  and  fired  at 
close  quarters,  the  crash  of  a  stone  shot  impacting  on 
iron  plates,  and  presently  the  tinkle  of  the  gravel  to 
which  the  shot  had  been  reduced,  dropping  down  upon 
their  heads  and  into  the  water  alongside,  in  a  minia- 
ture hail-storm. 

Sir  George  glanced  up  at  the  upper  bridge.  The 
little  sailor,  binoculars  in  hand,  cold  cigar  between  his 
teeth,  was  standing  there  unruffled,  and  fully  occu- 
pied in  his  pilotage. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

SAINT    M.    BERGASII,    B.A. 

OIR  GEORGE  CHESTERMAN  put  down  the 
^  glasses  and  relighted  his  pipe.  "  I'm  hanged  if 
I  can  make  out  those  heaps  of  chocolate-colored  stone 
you  told  us  about,  Skipper.  There's  the  cliff  all  right 
that  you  said  they  were  quarrying  from,  but  the  shore 
below  it  is  swept  as  clean  as  the  floor  of  a  ball-room." 

"  Yes,  sir.  That's  one  of  the  things  that's  bother- 
ing me  a  good  deal." 

"  And  I  suppose  the  other  is :  Where  have  our 
dusky  friends  all  bolted  to?  They  bang  off  their  tin 
cannon  at  us  just  as  might  have  been  expected,  and 
then,  instead  of  putting  up  the  battle  which  one  might 
reasonably  suppose  ought  to  follow,  Ihey  calmly 
vanish.  D'you  suppose  they're  just  lying  doggo  un- 
der decks  till  we  are  kind  enough  to  call  ?  " 

"  It's  possible,  sir." 

"  With  their  pockets  full  of  paving  stones,  the 
aforesaid,  to  fire  at  us  when  we  pull  alongside?  By 
the  way,  could  they  have  pocketed  all  the  stone  you 
saw?" 

"  No,  sir,  certainly  not.  There  must  have  been 
thousands  of  tons  of  it.  They  were  working,  work- 
ing, working  day  after  day,  many  hundreds  of  them. 

,l8i 


i82     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

Indeed,  the  more  I  think  of  it  the  more  I  am  con- 
vinced the  heaps  didn't  grow  as  they  ought  to  have 
done." 

"Why,  what  do  you  mean?" 

"  It  almost  seems  as  if  they  must  have  been  carting 
it  away  under  cover  of  night  while  we  were  hanging 
about  here  in  the  surf-boat,  and  then  as  soon  as  our 
backs  are  turned,  off  goes  the  rest  of  it.  As  you  say, 
sir,  the  beach  now  is  swept  as  clear  as  a  chapel  floor 
over  all  the  space  behind  the  Tozvers  and  up  to  the  foot 
of  the  cliff." 

"  Well,"  said  Sir  George,  "  they  can't  have  evapo- 
rated into  thin  air,  all  of  them.  Suppose  we  just  sit 
down  and  smoke  for  half  an  hour,  and  see  if  we  can't 
spot  some  one  peeping  at  us  either  from  the  steamer  or 
behind  some  bit  of  cover  on  the  land  side." 

"  With  ladies  to  take  care  of  here  on  board,"  said 
Captain  Kettle  with  a  sigh,  "  that's  the  best  thing  we 
can  do.  We  must  move  very  cautious.  We  can't 
afford  to  take  the  usual  men's  risks." 

So  they  set  to  work  with  binoculars  and  telescopes 
to  search  for  what  they  could  find. 

On  the  Atlantic  side  the  scheme  of  the  land  and 
seascape  was  simple  enough.  There  was  a  long 
straggling  row  of  reefs  and  islets,  noisy  on  the  outer 
edges  with  a  white  frill  of  surf,  and  apparently 
tenanted  only  by  sea-fowl.  A  Moor  or  two  might 
certainly  have  been  hidden  in  unseen  folds  of  the 
larger  dunes,  but  the  mode  of  their  ferriage  across  the 
lagoon  was  not  apparent,  and  it  was  hardly  likely  they 


SAINT  M.  BERGASH,  B.A.  183 

would  have  cut  themselves  adrift  from  any  possible 
base. 

Africa  on  the  other  side  of  the  lagoon  presented  in 
that  latitude  an  edge  as  straight  as  if  it  had  been  ruled, 
with  the  one  exception  of  a  small  curved  peninsula 
like  a  human  fist  and  arm,  mainly  of  chocolate-colored 
rock,  which  was  thrust  out  into  the  lagoon,  and  in  the 
hollow  of  this,  the  crook  of  the  arm,  so  to  speak,  the 
Norman  Tozvers  was  harbored.  Beyond  the  straight 
edge  of  the  hot  yellow  beach  lay  dunes  of  sand  which 
bristled  here  and  there  with  clumps  of  dry  gray  grass. 

"  I  can  see  birds  running  in  and  out  of  those  grass 
tufts,"  said  Kettle,  peering  through  his  long  old- 
fashioned  ship's  telescope.  "  They  don't  seem  wor- 
ried. They  aren't  attempting  to  fly.  That  shows 
there's  no  men  about." 

"  Here's  where  I  come  in,"  said  Sir  George  with  a 
a  laugh.  "  Those  are  Barbary  partridge,  and  about 
the  most  unsporting  game  bird  to  shoot  at  on  the  face 
of  Africa.  You  have  almost  to  kick  them  up  before 
they'll  rise  to  be  comfortably  shot.  Try  further,  Skip- 
per." 

The  heads  of  live-oaks  and  argan-trees  showed  be- 
yond the  dunes,  stretching  over  a  wide  flat,  and  then 
there  were  scrub-clad  foot-hills,  and  then  steeper 
slopes  that  ran  back  into  colossal  mountains. 

"  The  Atlas,  I  suppose,  those  big  lumps  at  the  back," 
said  Sir  George. 

"  Don't  knoAV,  sir.  I'm  a  sailor,  and  my  geography 
doesn't  go  inland  past  the  beach." 


i84     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  I  think  all  the  big  mountains  that  run  out  to  the 
Atlantic  about  here  belong  to  the  Atlas  range,  or  one 
of  its  spurs.  Is  that  cloud  up  at  the  top  there,  do  you 
suppose,  or  snow  ?  " 

"  It  might  be  either." 

"  And  there  may  be  villages  to  any  extent,  or  even 
towns  for  that  matter,  tucked  away  out  of  our  sight 
in  the  valleys  and  folds  of  that  range,  and  we  should 
be  none  the  wiser.  I'm  afraid,  Skipper,  we  can't  trace 
the  barracks  of  your  black  regiment  by  merely  staring 
at  the  country-side." 

"  Just  take  a  line,  sir,  please,  over  that  palm  tree 
with  the  stem  like  a  catapult.  D'ye  call  that  blue  haze 
just  a  bit  of  heat  mist,  or  is  it  cooking  smoke?  " 

The  sailor  stared,  and  his  employer  stared,  and 
again  they  decided  that  it  might  be  either. 

'*  If  you  very  knowing  people,"  said  Violet  Chester- 
man,  "  will  bring  your  eyes  nearer  home  and  take  a 
look  at  the  partridges  again,  you'll  see  they're  all  tend- 
ing to  run  one  way,  and  that's  north.  And  those 
dotty  little  things  among  them  are  quail,  I  suppose." 

"  And  by  gad,  Skipper,  look  there,  did  you  see  that? 
And  he  was  heading  north,  too." 

"  I  saw  a  big  animal,  sir." 

"  Moroccan  wild  boar,  and  bolting  like  a  good-un, 
wasn't  he?  Now  his  eminence,  the  pig,  doesn't  run 
out  of  the  way  of  one  man,  nor,  if  he's  that  way  out, 
will  he  sometimes  shift  for  forty.  I  should  say  there's 
distinct  reason  to  expect  visitors  presently  down  at 
the  southern  end  of  the  beach  there." 


SAINT  M.  BERGz\SH,  B.A.  185 

*'  That's  at  the  back  of  the  Norman  Towers,  sir, 
where  they  were  before.  Ahnost  looks  as  if  the  first 
comers  had  padded  a  good  hard  road  to  that  point, 
and  late  callers  stick  to  the  same  track.  Well,  it  will 
simplify  matters  if  they  make  a  rule  of  that." 

"  The  range  from  liere  to  there  is  —  say,  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  —  or  perhaps  five  hundred  yards. 
Shooting  will  be  a  bit  difficult  across  sand  in  this  heat, 
because  of  the  refraction,  but  we  ought  to  get  on  to 
the  target  after  a  shot  or  two.  What  do  you  say  if 
we  point  out  when  they  begin  to  arrive  that  we  regard 
this  section  of  the  continent  as  part  of  the  British 
Empire,  and  that  this  isn't  our  at-home  day?" 

"  I  want  you  to  remember,  sir,  as  I'm  remember- 
ing," said  Captain  Kettle  patiently,  "  that  we've  got 
ladies  on  board  and  can't  afford  to  make  mistakes.  I 
know  it  means  we  shall  miss  some  fun.  But  I  want 
them  to  be  allowed  to  make  the  first  moves." 

"  Then,"  said  Sir  George,  "  that  puts  my  rifle  out  of 
action  for  the  time  being,  and,  by  the  speaker's  eye, 
there's  the  mark !  " 

There  cantered  out  from  behind  the  shoulder  of  a 
dune,  twenty  splendid  barbaric  cavalrymen.  Of  the 
two  who  rode  first,  one,  obviousl_y  an  inferior,  carried 
a  white  napkin  blowing  out  from  the  end  of  his  long 
gun-barrel,  and  the  other  alongside  him  was  in  com- 
mand. They  halted,  and  for  a  moment  regarded  the 
rusting  Norman  Toivers.  Captain  Kettle  with  some 
quick  instinct  of  defiance  (in  spite  of  the  v»'ords  he  had 
just    uttered)    laid    hold    of    the    Wangaroo's    siren 


i86     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

string,  and  after  a  preliminary  cough  or  two,  to  clear 
its  throat,  blew  out  a  deep  sonorous  blast.  The  troop 
leader  turned  to  his  men,  and  through  the  glasses  Sir 
George  could  see  him  laugh.  Then  he  touched  his 
horse  with  the  sharp  corners  of  his  stirrup-irons,  and 
galloped  north  up  the  beach'  alone,  without  flag  of 
truce,  without  escort. 

Abreast  of  the  Wangaroo  he  reined  up,  and  his 
black  stallion  stood  with  forefeet  at  the  water's  edge, 
and  hind  hoofs,  straddled  out  backward,  as  though 
it  had  been  trained  for  the  show  ring.  The  rider 
brought  up  a.  hand  to  his  head-gear  in  salute,  dropped 
it,  dropped  his  reins,  and  sat  there  under  the  sunshine 
like  a  man  carved  out  of  iron. 

**  Wants  to  talk,  I  guess,"  said  Captain  Kettle.  "  I 
wonder  what's  his  little  game.  Doesn't  seem  to  have 
any  idea  we  might  shoot  him  either." 

"  Well,  you  can't  bawl  at  him  across  this  distance. 
Besides,  it's  too  hot  for  shouting.  It  would  be  inter- 
esting to  hear  what  he's  got  to  say.  I  lay  a  pound  to 
a  brick  he'll  start  to  prove  that  he's  got  no  connection 
with  the  other  darkies  who  whanged  at  us  with  the 
brass  gun." 

"  He's  a  very  splendid-looking  man,"  said  Violet 
from  behind  a  pair  of  binoculars.  "  And,  anyway, 
there's  only  one  of  him,  so  you  needn't  be  afraid." 

"  Yes,  I'm  afraid  all  right,  miss,"  said  Captain  Ket- 
tle grimly.  "  But  we'll  interview  the  gentleman  for 
all  that,  if  we  can  rake  up  any  language  among  us 
that  the  other  can  understand.     Mr.  Smith?" 


SAINT  M.  BERGASH,  B.A.  187 

"Sir?" 

"  Call  away  that  port  quarter-boat,  and  fetch  off 
that  man  from  the  beach." 

"  Aye,  aye,  sir." 

"  During  the  interval.  Captain,  let  me  give  you  a 
cup  of  tea,"  said  Violet.  "  The  steward  makes  it  him- 
self now,  so  I  can  guarantee  it's  not  been  boiled  more 
than  half  an  hour.  You  needn't  look  anxious,  George. 
That's  an  ambassador  on  the  beach  there,  and  while 
negotiations  last  there'll  be  a  truce.  Afterward  it 
may  possibly  be  '  battle  continued  ',  So  let's  drink  tea 
while  we  may,  and  be  thankful  for  the  cook's  new 
biscuit." 

It  was  on  this  domestic  scene  that  the  ambassador's 
eye  first  fell  when  he  came  up  over  the  side.  Captain 
Owen  Kettle,  as  the  complete  ship  captain,  went  to 
meet  him,  with  his  best  air,  and  his  best  Arabic. 

"  Slamma,"  said  Kettle. 

"  Aleikoom  slamma,"  said  the  visitor. 

Captain  Kettle  reeled  off  a  sentence  or  two  to  the 
effect  that  the  day  was  fine,  hospitality  was  waiting, 
and  Allah  was  in  His  Heaven.  In  the  original  it  was 
a  fine  sonorous  phrase,  but  as  the  little  sailor  had 
picked  it  up  from  the  Mecca  pilgrim  touts  in  Jeddah, 
half  the  words  were  very  much  debased  Arabic,  and 
the  rest  were  made  up  of  assorted  unknown  dialects. 

However,  it  was  all  one  to  the  visitor.  He  lauglied 
and  shook  his  head.  "  I'm  sorry,"  said  he,  in  Eng- 
lish, "  but  I  am  a  poor  linguist.  I  didn't  know  you 
were  Portuguese." 


i88     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"By  James!"  thundered  Captain  Kettle,  "if  any 
man  takes  me  for  less  than  I  am  I'll  kill  him.  And  SQ 
you  speak  English  ?  " 

The  visitor  lifted  his  eyebrows.  "  I  really  don't  see 
why  not.  I  know  you  islanders  think  you  monopolize 
the  whole  earth,  but  I  never  knew  that  you  objected 
to  share  out  your  language." 

The  man  spoke  with  a  quiet  educated  voice,  with- 
out effort  and  without  accent.  By  this  time  the  other 
two  at  the  tea-table  had  got  over  their  first  surprise, 
and  Sir  George  got  up  and  walked  across. 

"I'm  sure,"  he  said,  "you'll  pardon  Captain  Ket- 
tle's natural  surprise.  But  really  you  look  the  Moor 
to  the  life  in  that  kit,  and  any  one  might  make  a  mis- 
take. My  name's  Chesterman.  Will  you  come  and 
be  introduced  to  my  sister  and  have  some  tea  ?  " 

The  visitor  bowed.  He  had  just  the  knack  of  an 
English  gentleman's  bow,  not  too  much,  not  too  stiff, 
and  not  in  any  way  to  be  mistaken  for  the  bow  of 
other  nations.  And  then  he  sat  himself  and  his  white 
draperies  very  comfortably  in  a  big  Madeira  chair,  and 
crossed  his  red  leather  riding-boots  and."  took  up  the 
cup  that  was  offered  him, 

"The  taste  of  this  will  come  back  like' an  old  mem- 
ory," said  he.  "  We  use  green  tea,  you  know,  down 
here,  and  take  it  with  green  mint  and  a  lot  of  sugar." 

"  I  tried  it  once  in  Tangier,"  said  Violet.  "  We 
ran  over  there  for  the  day  from  Gibraltar.  I  don't 
think  I  could  ever  get  used  to  it.  Have  you  really 
come  to  like  it?  " 


SAINT  M.  BERGASH,  B.A.  189 

"  I  was  brought  up  to  the  taste,  you  see." 
"Then  have  you  been  out  here  a  long  lime?" 
"  Ever  since  I  came  dov^n  from  Cambridge,  with  an 
interlude  once  of  a  week  also  in  Gibraltar.     I  took  a 
pony  over  there  to  race." 

"  Then  have  you  —  I  mean  are  you  — "  the  usually 
glib  Miss  Chesterman  was  at  a  loss  for  a  way  to  put 
it.  It  dawned  on  her  that  this  visitor  in  the  Moor- 
ish clothes,  head-gear  bound  round  with  camel's-hair 
rope,  gold-sheathed  hooked  dagger  hung  over  one 
shoulder,  gold  mounted  pistol  over  the  other,  this  man 
from  the  interior  of  Africa  was  English.  Come  to 
notice  him  more  closely,  his  hair  and  his  beard  were 
brown,  and  his  eyes  were  blue;  and,  though  his  com- 
plexion was  somewhat  dark,  that,  of  course,  was  the 
sun.  And,  anyway,  many  Southern  Europeans  were 
far  darker  than  he.  He  was  an  Englishman  and  a 
Cambridge  man,  and  he  had  kicked  over  the  traces 
somehow  at  home  and  discreetly  vanished  into  the 
mysteries  of  Africa.  Those,  it  flashed  across  her, 
were  the  outstanding  points  of  his  biography.  "  Do 
you  like  the  country  in  there?"  she  asked  as  a  com- 
promise. 

''  It  has  its  points.  But  then,  perhaps,  I'm  prej- 
udiced.    You  see,  I  am  used  to  it." 

"  I  said,"  put  in  Captain  Kettle  pointedly,  "  from 
the  very  first  moment  I  saw  the  way  those  niggers 
were  being  handled  on  the  Norman  Tozvers  that  there 
was  a  white  man  in  it  at  the  back  of  this  business 
somewhere." 


I90     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  So  ?  "  said  the  visitor  with  polite  indifference. 

"I  was  up  at  Cambridge,"  said  Sir  George. 
"  Clare  was  my  shop.  But  I  should  be  a  lot  senior  to 
you,"  and  he  mentioned  his  year. 

"  By  Jove !  "  said  the  visitor,  "  that's  a  queer  coin- 
cidence. I  was  next  door  to  you,  at  the  Hall.  But 
I  didn't  go  up  till  two  years  after  you  came  down. 
Funny  place,  Cambridge.  I  took  up  Arabic  for  my 
special,  and  they  plowed  me  and  mainly  on  my  accent, 
too,  I'll  trouble  you.  But  I  stuck  to  it,  and  got  a  B.A. 
all  right  —  took  pol,  econ.  Lord,  I  wonder  what  it 
would  feel  like  going  back  to  take  one's  Master's." 

"  I  can  tell  you.  I  took  mine.  You  meet  only 
gyps  and  tradespeople  and  bedmakers  that  you  know, 
and  you  wonder  why  the  dons  are  all  so  dirty,  and 
the  undergraduates  are  all  such  babes.  The  only 
decent  man  I  met  up  there  that  I'd  known  before  was 
old  Heber,  the  pawnbroker.  I  took  him  to  the  Bull 
and  dined  him,  and  he  gave  me  all  the  news." 

"  I've  often  regretted,"  said  the  visitor,  "  that  I 
never  pawned  anything  when  I  was  in  England,  so 
that  I  could  look  back  and  know  how  it  was  done. 
Going  to  a  pawnbroker's  when  I  was  at  Charter- 
house was,  for  some  reason  or  other,  considered  bad 
form.  They  were  awfully  narrow  in  some  ways. 
And  I'm  afraid  some  of  the  Charterhouse  supersti- 
tions stuck  to  me  even  after  I'd  rubbed  about  at  the 
Hall." 

"  All  the  public  schools  have  their  fads,"  Sir  George 
admitted.     "  That's  why  we  pay  two  hundred  pounds 


SAINT  M.  BERGASH,  B.A.  191 

a  year  for  the  privilege  of  going  to  them.  So  you 
were  at  Charterhouse?  I  wonder  if  you  were  there 
with  my  cousin  Fred  ?  " 

"  Fred  Chesterman  ?  I  should  think  I  was.  Not 
that  I  knew  him.  He  was  a  big  chap  in  the  sixth 
when  I  was  a  wretched  little  shaver  at  the  bottom  end 
of  the  lower  school.  But  he  was  a  great  god  of  mine. 
He  was  the  school  soccer  captain  my  first  year,  and 
fired  me  with  ambition  to  play  association  foot-ball. 
I  didn't  do  so  badly  either;  got  into  the  school  team, 
and  played  for  the  Hall  for  the  matter  of  that,  though 
they  were  no  good ;  but  I  never  managed  to  get  my 
blue,  which  was  the  real  thing  I  was  keen  on.  Sorry, 
Miss  Chesterman,  for  boring  you  with  all  this  school- 
boy shop.  But  I  haven't  had  a  chance  of  letting  out 
for  a  lot  of  years,  and,  really,  your  brother  led  me  on." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Captain  Kettle,  "  but 
were  you  born  in  England  ?  " 

"  I  was  not.  Clare  did  a  big  line  in  cricket,  if  I 
remember  my  records  right,  about  the  time  you  were 
up." 

"  I  think  Clare's  always  been  a  big  cricket  and  rug- 
ger college,"  said  Sir  George,  "  just  the  same  as  the 
Hall  put  in  most  of  its  time  at  the  boats.  Rowing 
was  my  line,  though,  and  that  is  the  reason,  I  sup- 
pose, why  I've  rather  run  to  flesh.  That's  the  usual 
fate  of  the  rowing  man  when  he  comes  down." 

Away  they  went  once  more  on  Cambridge  shop, 
Violet  putting  in  her  word  now  and  then,  and  Captain 
Kettle,  who  felt  outside  this  circle,  trying  his  best  not 


192     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

to  glower  too  openly.  The  little  sailor,  It  must  be 
remembered,  was  holding  his  first  command,  and  the 
weight  of  it  rode  heavily  on  him;  but  always  through- 
out his  life  it  is  on  record  that  the  business  of  his 
owners  came  first,  and  social  pleasures  a  bad  second. 
This  easy-mannered  visitor  was,  in  Kettle's  opinion, 
a  good  deal  too  clever  in  his  conversation  to  be  en- 
tirely wholesome,  and,  in  fact,  he  had  felt  a  natural 
antagonism  toward  him  from  the  first  moment  of  the 
man's  stepping  on  board.  If  he  had  had  only  his 
own  sentiments  to  consider,  he  would  have  thrown 
him  neck  and  crop  over  the  side.  But,  as  it  was,  in 
his  own  phrase  he  felt  himself  in  a  clove-hitch.  The 
policy  that  he  himself  felt  to  be  for  his  owner's  good 
was  exactly  opposed  to  the  policy  that  the  owner  was 
obviously  prepared  to  take,  and  Kettle  felt  that  never 
was  young  shipmaster  on  the  horns  of  a  more  cruel 
dilemma. 

But  at  the  risk  of  offending,  Captain  Kettle  dog- 
gedly followed  up  his  points  when  he  saw  a  chance. 

"  Have  you  lived  here  a  long  time  ?  "  he  asked  when 
the  next  lull  came. 

"  Some  people  might  call  it  long,"  the  visitor  re- 
plied Avith  easy  indifference,  and  went  on  to  discuss 
with  Sir  George  the  nice  point  of  introducing  Hun- 
garian partridges  to  stir  up  the  local  Barbary  bird. 

"Of  course,  it's  a  toss-up  if  they'd  cross,"  said 
Sir  George. 

"  And  I  should  make  myself  very  unpopular  with 
my  neighbors   if   I  produced  a   fowl  that  could  flv. 


SAINT  M.  BERGASH,  B.A.  193 

The  sportsman  hereabouts  goes  out  with  a  gun  six 
feet  long,  and  waits  half  a  day  till  he  gets  three 
partridges  in  a  row  on  the  ground,  and  then  lets  drive 
at  them.  You  see  the  breech-loading  shot-gun  isn't 
a  common  object  of  the  country-side  in  this  part  of 
the  world.  In  fact,  my  own  are  probably  the  only 
pair  of  twelve-bore  ejectors  in  this  part  of  Africa. 
Purdy  built  them  for  me  before  I  came  out,  and  I 
tell  you  I  had  a  very  awkward  job  of  it  smuggling 
them  into  the  country,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  I've 
got,  of  course,  a  bit  of  personal  pull." 

"  The  worst  of  buying  those  Hungarian  partridge 
eggs  is  that  I  believe  fully  ninety  per  cent,  of  them 
are  poached,"  remarked  Sir  George. 

"  Then,  if  that's  the  case,  the  experiment  as  far  as 
I'm  concerned  must  drop.  We're  a  pretty  lawless 
crew  out  here  over  game  laws,  but  if  one  hears  of  a 
man  preserving,  whether  it's  in  Hungary  or  in  Nor- 
folk, one  naturally  feels  bound  in  common  decency 
to  back  him  up.  But  I  suppose  one  could  get  eggs 
legitimately  produced  on  a  proper  game  farm  if  one 
,was  prepared  to  pay  for  them." 

"  Certainly.  Of  course,  pheasant's  eggs  are  their 
principal  product  at  those  places.  By  the  way,  why 
not  try  pheasants?  You've  plenty  of  cover,  and,  if 
the  partridges  can  find  food,  they  should,  too.  You 
ought  to  get  fine  rocketing  shots  if  you  had  rides  cut 
in  the  proper  places  among  some  of  those  steep 
woods." 

The  visitor  laughed  and  stretched  out  his  hands. 


194     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

He  had  small  and  beautifully-shaped  hands,  and  they 
were  very  carefully  kept. 

"  You  must  remember  we're  rather  out  of  the  world 
down  here,  and  there's  a  good  lump  of  the  Atlas  and 
a  number  of  very  unfriendly  people  between  here  and 
Mogador,  which  is  our  nearest  steamer  port.  I  have 
tried  importing  pheasant's  eggs  there  several  times, 
as  it  happens.  I  calculated  the  date  the  boat  would 
arrive,  and  had  relays  of  men  strung  out  between  here 
and  there  to  run  them  along  without  delay;  but  as 
each  time  the  experiment  has  been  a  fizzle,  one  gets  a 
bit  discouraged.  You  see,  it  takes  a  couple  of  hun- 
dred men  and  a  good  deal  of  organization  to  string 
out  one's  line  of  runners." 

Sir  George  Chesterman  stared.  This  broken-down 
university  man,  whom  he  was  prepared  rather  to  pity 
and  was  open  to  help,  was  evidently  a  person  of  some 
considerable  local  position.  He  had  not  spoken  in  the 
least  boastfully;  in  fact,  the  egg  tale  had  been  told 
with  the  humorous  touch  that  a  man  usually  does  give 
to  a  story  that  is  told  against  himself.  What  on  earth 
could  be  his  history? 

Captain  Kettle  took  advantage  of  the  lull,  and  fol- 
lowed his  subject  doggedly. 

"  Then  one  might  take  it  you  lived  here?  " 

"  One  might." —  The  words  were  a  trifle  offensive, 
but  a  smile  took  the  edge  from  them. 

"  A  local  landowner,  in  fact  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  think  I  am." 

Captain  Kettle  could  have  shaken  Sir  George  and 


SAINT  M.  BERGASH,  B.A.  195 

Miss  Chesterman  just  then.  Why  did  they  not  back 
him  up  in  his  search  for  sound  information,  instead 
of  turning  the  conversation  back  again  to  what  (he 
considered)   were  further  inanities? 

"  I  suppose  you  brew  your  own  powder  and  make 
your  own  shot  here  up-country?"  asked  Sir  George. 

"Most  of  them  do.  All  the  big  tribes  in  Atlas 
have  their  own  powder  mills,  and  when  we  run  out 
of  bullets,  we  mine  lead  and  do  a  bit  of  smelting. 
But  for  Winchesters  we  import  cartridges,  and  I'm 
afraid  I'm  extravagant  enough  to  do  the  same  for  my 
shot-gun  ammunition.  Kynochs  would  probably  be 
surprised  to  know  that  their  cartridges  cost  about 
eighteen  pence  apiece  by  the  time  they  reach  me  here. 
But  then,  of  course,  you  jealous  nations  outside  are 
to  blame.  You  put  up  an  absurd  interfering  law  mak- 
ing it  an  offense  to  import  Arms  of  Precision  into 
this  part  of  Africa,  and  as  you  have  your  warships  to 
back  you  up,  and  we  are  not  naval  folks,  cartridges 
cost  us  about  seven  pounds  a  hundred  instead  of  some 
ten  shillings.  But,  of  course,  we  get  them  all  the  same 
if  we  like  to  pay." 

"You  take  it  easily.  It's  that  small  item  of  pay- 
ing that  makes  things  so  hard  for  some  of  us." 

The  visitor  laughed.  "  I  apologize.  I  should  have 
remembered.  Here  for  —  well,  for  us  —  you  see, 
it's  only  a  case  of  sending  out  a  handful  of  one's  men 
to  do  a  bit  of  mining,  and  the  gold  slugs  trickle  out 
to  the  coast  and  come  back  as  coin.  We  don't  show 
riches  in  this  country;  it's  not  particularly  safe  to  do 


196     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

that;  but  it's  quite  as  well  to  have  them  within  reach, 
as  I  suppose  it  is  all  the  world  over." 

"  Then  if  you're  a  well-off  man,"  said  Captain  Ket- 
tle acidly,  "  may  I  ask  what  you  are  after  the  Norman 
Towers  for?  " 

This  time  there  was  no  doubt  about  the  visitor's 
dislike.  Hate  for  an  instant  gleamed  out  of  his  blue 
eyes,  and  was  as  quickly  veiled.  But  he  did  not  pre- 
tend to  infuse  cordiality  into  his  voice. 

*'  My  good  Captain  Whatever-your-name-is,  I  don't 
want  your  wreck.  And,  by  the  way,  now  we  are  on 
the  subject,  you  might  kindly  tell  me,  is  she  yours?" 

"  ]\Iy  owner  has  bought  all  the  rights  in  her  from 
Lloyds." 

"  Ah,  Lloyds !     An  eminent  corporation  in  London, 
I  believe?     Then  you  had  better  get  Lloyds  to  give 
you  delivery  of  your  bargain." 
^"  Won't 'you?" 

"I?  What  on  earth  have  I  to  do  with  it?  I'll 
give  you  a  piece  of  local  information,  if  you  like, 
not  that  I  imagine  for  a  moment  that  it  will  satisfy 
you.  The  law  of  Lloyds,  for  anything  I  know,  travels 
over  the  seas  that  Lloyds  control.  But  their  writ's 
not  current  here,  and  local  custom  has  a  different  law. 
Local  custom,  here,  south  of  the  Atlas,  says  that 
jetsam  on  any  beach  belongs  to  the  beach's  owner." 

"  You  can't  uphold  such  a  rule?  " 

The  visitor  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "  Possibly. 
At  any  rate,  I'm  not  going  to  try.  You  say  she's  your 
steamer.     In  that  case  you'd  better  take  her  away  — 


SAINT  M.  BERGASH,  B.A.  197 

if  you  can.  She  doesn't  interest  me,  and  I'm  not 
going  to  burn  my  fingers  over  your  affairs.  Why, 
who  is  — " 

The  visitor  stood  to  his  feet  and  bowed,  and  turned 
down  his  glance.  Miss  Dubbs  had  come  on  deck, 
handsome  in  face,  opulent  in  hair  and  figure. 

"You!  "said  Miss  Dubbs. 

The  visitor  looked  up  quickly  but  was  plainly  puz- 
zled.    "  I'm  afraid  I've  forgotten,  madam." 

**  I  should  never  forget  your  eyes,  though  I  was 
only  a  little  girl  at  the  time,  Mr.  Bergash,  Perhaps 
you'll  remember  me  when  I  tell  you  I  put  sticking- 
plaster  on  your  face  where  you  cut  it  after  your  bi- 
cycle threw  you  into  father's  front  gate.  You've  got 
the  scar  still  there  over  the  cheek-bone,  I  see.  And 
what  of  the  other  gentleman  who  called  you  *  Saint '  ?  " 

"  Oh,  he's  come  to  a  bad  end !  He's  an  attache  at 
one  of  the  fashionable  British  embassies  somewhere 
in  Europe."  He  turned  to  the  others.  "  Perhaps  I'd 
better  introduce  myself.  I'm  Sidi  Mohammed  Ber- 
gash. I  can't  help  the  saintship,"  he  added  whim- 
sically.    "  That  descended  to  me." 

"Then  you're  a  Moorish  chief  —  or  shaick  —  or 
whatever  you  call  it?  " 

"  No,  sir.  Very  much  the  reverse.  I'm  a  Berber, 
as  my  fathers  have  been  for  a  matter  of  three  thousand 
years,  in  spite  of  various  attempts  by  Romans,  and 
Saracens,  and  Moors,  and  these  parvenu  nations  to 
conquer  us.  And  I'm  kaid  of  that  country  up  there 
in  those  mountains." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

A   FOOT-NOTE   TO   HISTORY 

T  BELIEVE  that  the  Republic  of  Marina  in  North 
-■'  Italy,  and  the  somewhat  squalid  Republic  of 
Andorre  in  the  Pyrenees,  make  the  proud  boast  that 
they  have  never  been  conquered.  Discourteous  people 
might  point  out  that  there  is  nothing-  in  either  of  them 
to  attract  the  appetite  of  a  conqueror.  Thibet,  of 
course,  has  suffered  a  downfall,  and  the  North  Pole  is 
under  suspicion.  So  the  Mayan  section  of  Yucatan 
and  the  Berber  villages  of  the  Westeni  Atlas  remain 
the  only  countries  of  the  world  to-day  worthy  of  envy 
that  have  not  been  polluted  by  the  foot  of  the  invader. 
All  modern  rulers  of  Mexico  from  Don  Hernando 
Cortez  to  Don  Porfirio  Diaz  have  tried  to  annex  the 
interior  of  Yucatan  —  and  failed;  and  throughout  all 
the  ages,  all  the  successive  powers  from  the  Romans 
to  the  present  Moors  who  have  held  Morocco  have 
been  similarly  unsuccessful  in  their  attacks  upon  the 
Berber  strongholds  in  the  Atlas  mountains.  It  argues, 
if  one  comes  to  think  of  it,  some  particular  trait  of 
strength  which  keeps  these  two  small  districts  alone 
of  all  the  vast  acreage  of  the  globe  unexplored  by  the 
pushing  white  man,  unannexed  by  some  other  hungry 

J98 


A  FOOT-NOTE  TO  HISTORY  199 

nation,  undisturbed  by  that  standard  which  other  peo- 
ple have  been  pleased  to  set  up  as  civilization. 

Old  Kaid  Bergash  (father  of  the  man  Captain 
Kettle  disliked  so  keenly  on  first  sight)  was  a  tough 
old  warrior  who  ruled  his  tribe  with  a  rod  of  iron, 
and  was  an  authority  on  tradition.  He  lived  in  a  stone 
castle  built  on  an  almost  inaccessible  spur  of  the  Atlas, 
and  his  tribe  lived  there  with  him,  and  within  its 
walls  stored  all  their  principal  gear  and  worldly  goods. 
The  castle's  ground  space  inside  the  walls  measured 
barely  an  acre  and  a  half,  so  that  when  a  man  or  a 
family  needed  more  house-room  they  built  a  story 
on  to  their  existing  dwelling.  Some  of  these  huddled 
sky-scrapers  towered  as  much  as  five  stories  above 
ground  level.  But  that  was  the  limit.  One  or  two 
ambitious  architects  had  tried  for  greater  heights  and 
had  brought  their  whole  structure  crumbling  in  ruin. 
At  least  there  was  a  tradition  that  this  had  happened 
in  the  year  a.  d.  1492  when  the  Moors  of  the  Mo- 
roccan lowlands  were  busy  in  Spain,  and  the  Berber 
increase  was  not  kept  within  reasonable  limits  by 
war. 

Below  the  surface  of  the  rock,  great  hollows  had 
been  dug  out  in  very  early  days  for  grain  and  v^'ater 
storage,  and  the  fact  that  the  tribal  flocks  and  herds 
were  stabled  in  the  ground  floor  of  the  houses  above, 
and  gave  the  water  a  good  ammoniacal  flavor,  was 
not  a  trifle  to  disturb  a  Berber  palate.  And,  anyway, 
the  tribe  had  flourished  on  the  arrangement  for  a  mat- 
ter of  some  three  thousand  years. 


200     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

The  engineer  of  these  caverns  was  a  sapper  who 
had  served  his  time  as  a  mercenary  of  Carthage,  and, 
except  that  he  seems  to  have  run  to  a  taste  for  heavy 
bronze  doors  and  lids  to  his  bins,  he  appears  to  have 
done  his  work  efficiently  and  well.  He  was  an  ex- 
pert on  sieges,  and  laid  down  the  law  that  there  should 
always  be  kept  in  store  four  years'  corn,  three  years' 
forage  for  the  animals,  and  six  years'  water;  which 
provision  has  proved  efficient  on  many  historical  oc- 
casions, and  is  accordingly  maintained  to-day.  There 
is  also  a  well  in  the  middle  of  the  castle,  which  has 
been  dug  down  through  the  rock  during  sieges  —  the 
sinking  was  spread  over  four  hundred  years  —  and 
after  the  first  four  hundred  feet  it  goes  down  in 
inclines  set  spiralwise  round  a  solid  central  core. 

But  as  they  had  to  drive  downward  a  matter  of 
twelve  hundred  and  fifty  feet  before  they  struck  water, 
and  the  air  down  there  is  very  bad,  the  well  is  only 
looked  on  as  an  additional  guarantee,  and  is  in  reality 
never  used  except  in  moments  of  ver}^  great  hard- 
ship. 

On  three  sides  of  the  castle  the  rock  drops  prac- 
tically sheer  into  the  valley,  which  is  a  trifle  of  twelve 
hundred  feet  below.  I  fancy  there  must  have  been 
a  few  projections  once,  but  those  stout-hearted  old 
fellows  at  the  back  of  time  who  built  the  place  must 
have  slung  one  another  with  rawhide  ropes  down  the 
face  of  the  precipice,  and  chipped,  and  drilled,  and 
quarried  with  their  bronze  tools  till  all  possible  foot- 
holds dropped  down  below.     Afterward  they  squared 


A  FOOT-NOTE  TO  HISTORY  201 

the  bits  and  carried  them  up  to  the  top  again,  round 
by  the  path,  to  use  as  building  material. 

There  was  nothing  Carthaginian,  or  for  that  mat- 
ter African,  about  the  building  of  their  outer  wall. 
That  had  quite  the  Roman  touch.  It  was  eight  to  ten 
feet  thick,  all  of  tooled  stone,  with  no  rubble  pack- 
ing, and  all  held  together  by  a  mortar  that  was  a  good 
deal  harder  than  the  stone  itself.  The  one  gate- 
way, on  the  causeway  side,  was  just  wide  enough  to 
admit  a  gravid  cow,  and  no  wider,  and  the  height  of 
a  camel's  hump.  The  dwelling-houses  for  man  and 
beast  inside  were  less  pretentious.  They  had  not  been 
built  for  eternity,  and  after  the  fashion  set  by  the 
Pharaohs,  the  Jews,  and  the  Carthaginians  for  do- 
mestic buildings,  were  for  the  most  part  constructed 
of  adobe,  which  is  quite  good  for,  say,  three  hundred 
years  or  so,  if  only  you  keep  the  weather  out  by  a 
good  outside  skin  of  plaster. 

The  causeway,  too,  which  was  the  only  road  by 
which  one  could  get  into  the  castle,  was  quite  a  not- 
able feature  in  its  way.  Originally  it  had  been  part 
of  the  spur  on  which  the  castle  was  perched,  but  it 
had  been  shaved  down  the  sides  here,  and  built  up  at 
the  edge  there,  obviously  on  some  Roman  or  Car- 
thaginian model,  till  to-day  it  looks  like  an  aqueduct 
such  as  one  may  see,  for  example,  near  Tunis,  only 
with  the  arches  filled,  and  with  men  and  animals  in- 
stead of  water  coursing  along  the  gutter  at  its  top. 

Two  cows  abreast  can  get  along  that  causeway,  if 
they  are  not   fat  cows;  or  two  horsemen,   if   they; 


202     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

crook  up  their  outside  legs  so  as  not  to  interfere  with 
the  parapet ;  or  three  footmen,  if  the  middle  man  does 
not  swing  out  his  elbows.  The  length  of  it  from  the 
little  gateway  in  the  big  wall  to  where  it  fans  out  into 
bare  hillside  is  some  two  hundred  and  fifty  to  two 
hundred  and  eighty  yards,  and  the  drop  over  the 
parapet  averages  anything  between  fifty  and  ninety 
feet  sheer. 

Furthermore,  it  is  an  exception  to  all  modern  Moroc- 
can rules  of  architecture,  in  that  it  is  kept  in  excel- 
lent repair.  In  modern  times  —  say,  since  a.  d.  745 
—  the  Berbers  have  grafted  a  not  very  rigid  Mo- 
hammedism  on  the  assorted  brands  of  paganism  which 
their  mercenaries  down  through  the  former  ages 
brought  home  with  other  loot.  They  admit  in  theory 
that  every  man's  fate  is  written  on  his  forehead,  and 
that  what  Allah  has  ordained  will  come  to  pass.  But 
they  maintain  that  Allah  writes  the  choicest  things 
for  those  who  help  themselves,  and  so  they  keep  their 
defenses  efficient,  and  they  discourage  the  intruder. 

Now  Sidi  Ibrahim  Bergash  (of  pious  memory) 
had  one  wife  who  occupied  all  of  his  tender  affections, 
and  as  she  continued  at  decent  intervals  to  bear  him 
sons,  he  took  no  other.  During  the  3^ears  he  ruled 
over  the  castle  and  the  tribe,  seed-time  came  at  its  ap- 
pointed periods,  and  harvests  followed.  One  year  in 
twenty  came  the  blight,  which  was  bad ;  one  year  in 
fifteen  the  locusts,  which  were  worse;  and  one  year 
in  ten  the  sultan,  who  was  worst  of  the  lot. 


A  FOOT-NOTE  TO  HISTORY  203 

It  was  the  sultan's  habit  to  camp  an  army  among 
the  corn-fields  in  the  valley,  and,  if  not  bought  off,  to 
ravage  that  valley  down  to  the  last  blade  of  corn  and 
the  last  straying  goat.  He  could  not  smoke  or  shoot 
the  Berbers  out  of  their  castle  because  it  was  too 
strong,  and  the  Berbers  could  not  cup  up  his  army 
because  it  was  too  big,  and  although  the  residents 
did  creep  out  at  night-time  and  try  a  little  snipping, 
two  can  play  at  that  game,  and  the  sultan's  men,  be- 
sides being  clever  soldiers,  had  such  an  extremely  bad 
time  of  it  in  this  world  that  they  were  indecently  anx- 
ious to  be  sent  to  Paradise,  and  in  consequence  in- 
conveniently reckless. 

So  that,  on  the  whole,  it  was  only  the  younger  and 
rasher  spirits  among  the  Berbers  who  tried  much  re- 
taliation, and  the  elders,  with  households  to  provide 
for,  generally  found  it  profitable  to  pay  enough  taxes 
to  buy  off  the  rest  of  their  crops.  But  be  it  clearly 
understood  they  did  not  one  little  bit  like  paying,  and 
never  accounted  themselves  the  sultan's  subjects  or 
even  his  vassals. 

Slings,  the  long-bow  and  the  cross-bow  had  from 
time  immemorial  been  the  Berbers'  missile-throwers, 
though,  like  the  Baleares,  they  had  always  had,  and 
have  to-day  for  that  matter,  a  weakness  for  the  sling. 
Black  powder  and  the  short-stocked  gun  with  a  five- 
foot  barrel  have  crept  among  them  these  latter  years, 
but  owing  to  their  inefficiency  and  the  difficulty  of 
coming  by  them,  have  achieved  no  vast  popularity. 


204     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

It  remained  for  Saint  Ibrahim  to  discover  and  lust 
after  the  rifle. 

His  holiness,  as  it  happened,  was  one  day  at  the 
northern  edge  of  his  marches,  where  the  Atlas  foot- 
hills curve  out  into  the  plain,  and  the  temperate  climate 
of  the  mountain  verges  into  a  tropical  heat.  He  was 
over  on  that  side  on  the  matter  of  a  cohort  of  wild 
pig  raiding  among  some  of  the  tribal  corn  and  being 
a  keen  sportsman,  and  finding  the  pig  plentiful,  stayed 
down  there  a  whole  week,  and  slew  fourteen  fine  boars 
to  his  own  spear  (whereof,  the  tusks  by  the  way,  re- 
main as  hat  pegs  in  a  set  of  rooms  in  Trinity  Hall  to 
this  day). 

Upon  this  innocent  amusement  there  descended 
without  warning  the  advance  scouts  of  a  sultan's 
army,  and  the  sportsmen  and  beaters  ran  or  rode  for 
their  lives  in  fourteen  different  directions.  Three 
beaters  and  a  cousin  of  the  kaid's  were  captured,  and 
his  highness  the  sultan,  with  that  paternal  care  for 
his  people  for  which  he  was  noted,  and  which  so  en- 
deared him  to  them,  cut  off  the  hands  and  feet  from 
these  and  set  them  to  crawl  back  to  the  mountains  as 
heralds  of  his  approach. 

The  saint,  however,  wily  old  fighter  that  he  was, 
had  rallied  the  rest  of  his  men,  had  swung  round 
in  cover,  and  charged  in  most  dashing  style  through 
the  sultan's  rear-guard  just  as  the  army  had  unsad- 
dled for  the  midday  halt.  It  is  estimated  that  he 
hustled  forty-seven  true  believers  into  Paradise,  left 
wounds  on  another  score  that  would  annoy  the  houris 


A  FOOT-NOTE  TO  HISTORY  205 

hereafter,  and  spread  an  unclean  odor  of  pig  among 
the  faithful  that  it  would  take  at  least  a  pilgrimage 
I  to  the  prophet's  tomb  at  Mecca  to  cleanse  away.  Also 
from  an  officer  (deceased)  he  took  a  gun,  and,  as  an 
afterthought,  charged  back  again  through  the  scattered 
soldiers,  and  obtained  the  ammunition  that  served  it. 

This  gun,  which  happened  to  be  an  early  pattern 
of  the  Winchester  repeater,  pleased  his  holiness  much. 
Within  five  minutes  he  had  grasped  its  mechanism, 
and  proved  its  value  on  the  target  so  satisfactorily, 
that  three  more  mothers  in  Islam  were  left  to  mourn 
sons  who  had  served  among  the  sultan's  infantry: 
And  these  hits  were  made  at  under  two  hundred  yards' 
rise;  it  never  occurred  to  the  pious  man  that  a  gun 
could  carry  farther. 

But  in  the  pursuit,  which  was  hot,  he  tested  the 
w-eapon  at  longer  and  longer  ranges,  till  at  length 
(having  mastered  the  mechanism  of  the  sighting)  he 
sent  his  man  to  Paradise  accurately  enough  at  eight 
hundred  and  fifty  yards,  and  felt  that  a  new  element 
had  entered  into  the  science  of  warfare.  The  trifling 
detail  that  the  long  stock  to  which  he  w-as  unaccus- 
tomed kicked  violently  on  his  cheek  and  cut  it  to  the 
bone  did  not  concern  him  in  the  least. 

Of  the  sultan  of  Morocco,  as  it  happened,  no  more 
was  seen  that  year.  It  may  be  that  business  called 
him  elsewhere;  it  may  be  that  the  long-range  fire  of 
that  desperate  rear-guard  action  put  the  fear  of  Allah 
into  him;  but  the  saint  retired  to  his  castle  in  peace, 
and,  what  is  far  more  to  the  point,  his  fertile  valley 


2o6     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

lands  remained  unraided,  and  the  decennial  blackmail 
was  not  asked  for. 

For  many  weeks  thereafter  SidI  Ibrahim  drank  his 
green  tea  and  smoked  his  pipe  of  keef  with  a  mind 
that  wrestled  with  big  things.  A  new  factor  had 
arisen  in  honest  warfare.  The  god  of  battle,  who 
was  one  of  the  old  Berber  mythology  before  the  new- 
fangled Mohammedism  had  been  forced  on  the  tribe, 
the  god  of  battle  had  grown  a  longer  arm. 

Yesterday,  if  you  shot  at  a  man  at  a  hundred  paces 
rise  with  all  the  good  will  in  the  world,  the  odds  were 
that  three  times  out  in  four  you  missed  him.  To- 
day, when  the  Yaiour  gun  with  the  stripes  inside  the 
barrel  had  been  restocked  and  reheel-plated  to  suit  a 
true  believer's  grip,  you  could  kill  running  pig  with 
it  at  six  hundred  yards  without  a  miss.  And  then, 
hisni'illah,  there  was  its  damnable  faculty  for  firing 
ten  shots  in  ten  heart-beats  —  and  being  reloaded  in 
ten  heart-beats  more. 

The  less  the  holy  man  thought  over  the  points  of 
the  gun  the  less  he  liked  them;  but  he  recognized 
facts  when  they  came  against  him;  and  when  his  chief 
adviser  in  the  elders'  council  suggested  that  the  gun 
was  produced  by  witchcraft,  and  might  well  be  sent 
to  Eblis  whence  it  came  —  well,  his  language  was 
merely  irritable,  and  not  saintlike  in  the  least. 

Finally,  after  a  year's  thought,  he  came  to  a  de- 
cision. There  were  things  abroad  that  threatened 
the  existence  of  the  Berber  nation  in  the  Atlas,  and 
the  origin  of  them  must  be  sought  out.     Only  one  way 


A  FOOT-NOTE  TO  HISTORY  207 

of  effecting  this  showed  itself;  he  must  send  a  son  to 
the  land  of  the  Yaiotirs  to  learn  the  Yaiours'  ways. 
With  moody  eyes  he  inspected  his  infant  brood,  and 
wondered  which  one  of  the  six  to  send.  But  soon  he 
decided  that  there  could  be  no  question  about  the 
choice.  It  must  be  the  apple  of  his  eye,  his  eldest,  the 
going-to-be-saint,  who  would  follow  him  in  the  saint- 
ship,  who  must  depart  to  this  accurst  shore  to  learn 
how  saints  in  these  modern  days  kept  up  their  state 
and  dignity. 

And  then,  being  a  thoroughly  capable  man  in  per- 
fecting detail,  he  went  on  to  insure  that  his  venture 
should  not  miscarry.  The  despised  Moor,  who  held 
the  low  country,  was,  he  knew  full  well,  incompetent 
for  such  a  business.  The  Moor  was  good  for  nothing 
but  a  fight.  The  detestable  Yahudi  was  the  only  man 
of  affairs  (shameful  as  it  was  to  own  such  a  thing) 
in  all  wide  Morocco.  So  the  saint  sent  kidnappers 
into  the  City  of  Mogador  (where  the  London  and 
Hamburg  steamers  call)  and  in  fullness  of  time  they 
returned  with  six  men  of  Israel,  bound  and  trembling. 

To  the  ordinary  eye  they  were  unappetizing 
scoundrels,  who  were  born  cringing,  who  begged  as  a 
habit,  and  who  did  not  blunder  into  telling  the  truth 
more  than  once  between  Ramadan  and  Ramadan. 
And  the  potentate,  whose  ancestors  had  as  mercenaries 
under  Titus  helped  to  storm  Jerusalem  in  the  year  70, 
did  not  handle  them  with  undue  delicacy. 

Said  he :  "  I  know  you  vermin  stick  together.  So 
I  shall  retain  you  here  as  hostages  while  your  fellow- 


2o8     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

dogs  of  Yahudis  elsewhere  carry  out  that  which  I 
wish  to  be  done.  Beyond  that  curtain  is  my  son,  my 
eldest,  a  man  of  thirteen  years.  Him  I  wish  taken 
to  the  country  of  the  N'zaranees,  and  throughout  eight 
years  taught  all  the  things  the  Yaiours  know." 

"  But  it  will  cost  money,  much  money,"  one  of  the 
captives  yammered. 

His  holiness  nodded  to  a  pair  of  experts.  "  Throw 
that  dog  upon  his  face  and  beat  the  soles  of  his  feet 
till  he  has  purged  his  offense  in  speaking  unasked,  to 
one  whose  forbears  married  the  prophet's  sister.  My 
son  is  a  prince's  son,  and,  though  in  truth  he  must 
not  be  know^n  as  such  in  the  Yaiour  lands  (lest  ill 
befall  him)  all  the  money  that  shall  be  due  for  his 
maintenance  and  teaching  shall  be  freely  provided." 

The  five  remaining  Jews  lifted  their  hands  to  their 
foreheads  in  acquiescence  with  such  unanimity  that 
they  might  have  been  one  Jew. 

"  And  for  the  sure  performance  of  this  task  you 
five  —  and  that  dog,  also,  if  he  lives  —  will  stay  here 
as  hostages,  drawing  what  moneys  please  you,  and 
seeing  that  your  fellow-dogs  in  Mogador  do  my  will. 
When  the  young  man  returns,  if  he  has  gained  the 
knowledge  required,  you  will  be  free  to  go  to  your 
homes,  you  and  your  loads  of  gold.  But  if  he  re- 
turns not,  or  if  he  returns  without  all  the  knowledge 
of  the  Yaiours,  then  I  will  send  down  to  Mogador 
your  skins  stuffed  with  straw,  as  a  sign  of  my  dis- 
pleasure. You  have  my  permission  to  go  back  to 
your  cell." 


A  FOOT-NOTE  TO  HISTORY         209 

Now  the  Jewish  organization  all  the  world  over  is 
singularly  complete,  but  in  North  Africa,  under  the 
stress  of  Moslem  persecution,  it  has  grown  to  a  mar- 
velous perfection.  The  cringing  verminous  person  in 
the  black  jellab  and  skullcap,  who  is  nominally  a  buyer 
of  hides  in  a  small  way  in  Fez,  really  reports  on  the 
political  omens  and  market  outlook  in  that  capital  to 
retiring  co-religionists  in  Casa  Blanca  and  Mazagan. 

These  send  on  their  knowledge  while  it  is  hot  and 
fresh  to  fellow  tribesmen  in  Europe  and  the  United 
States,  who,  when  such  information  is  of  value  at  the 
moment,  transmit  it  in  turn,  and  for  the  usual  con- 
sideration, of  course,  to  the  big  Semitic  banking 
houses  of  London,  Berlin,  New  York,  and  Paris. 
When  any  news  of  importance  transpires  anywhere 
in  all  the  world  these  get  it  first,  the  Gentile  financiers 
next,  the  press  next,  and  then  the  British  Government. 

The  Hebrew  hostages  in  the  saint's  stronghold  held 
anxious  trembling  council,  and  then  took  their  meas- 
ures with  decision  and  vigor.  They  passed  in  review 
Spain,  which  always  looms  in  Moorish  eyes,  with  a 
bigness  out  of  its  true  proportion ;  Germany  already 
famous  for  push  and  advancement;  and  complacent 
Great  Britain,  which  never  seemed  to  ask  but  always 
appeared  to  get ;  and  Britain  won  the  ballot.  The 
case  was  laid  before  a  great  banker  in  London,  and 
he,  as  though  such  matters  came  within  his  every-day 
business,  made  the  arrangements. 

It  is  perhaps  worthy  to  be  put  on  record  that  there 
was  no  question  of  sending  the  lad  to  be  educated  by 


210     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

Jews.  The  Hebrew  of  to-day  always  prefers  Gentile 
methods.  And  besides,  an  Israelitish  education,  if 
such  a  thing  had  been  procurable,  would  have  cost 
skins.  The  tough  old  saint  in  the  Atlas  was  frankly 
Anti-Semitic  in  his  tastes. 

The  London  banker  sent  out,  first  of  all,  a  tutor  to 
Mogador.  The  man  was  to  take  a  house,  furnish  and 
staff  it  efficiently,  and  give  the  mountain  boy  the  first 
course  of  his  new  education.  In  other  words,  he  was 
to  teach  him  a  working  modicum  of  the  English  lan- 
guage, introduce  him  to  trousers  and  a  hard  collar, 
and  break  him  in  to  knife  and  fork.  The  tutor  was 
paid  five  hundred  pounds  a  year  over  and  above  ex- 
penses —  and  earned  it. 

Next  came  a  couple  of  years  at  a  carefully  chosen 
preparatory  school;  and  then,  when  the  boy  was  de- 
scribed by  an  expert  as  unmistakably  English,  he  went 
to  Charterhouse,  and  so  on  in  due  time  to  the  uni- 
versity. 

He  was  probably  one  of  the  most  narrowly  watched 
school-boys  in  Europe  during  this  period.  All  the 
tremendous  organization  and  skill  of  Israel  in  Lon- 
don, urged  on  by  their  hostage  co-religionists  in  Sidi 
Ibrahim's  fortress,  and  furnished  with  unlimited 
means,  guided  and  guarded  all  his  movements,  and 
the  result  could  not  fail  to  be  efficient. 

The  boy  made  neither  boast  nor  concealment  about 
his  orign.  He  grew  up  among  the  sons  of  soldiers 
and  parsons,  peers  and  butchers,  grocers  and  drama- 
tists, stock-holders  and  princes,  and  got  molded  into 


A  FOOT-NOTE  TO  HISTORY  211 

the  public  school  caste,  and  was  taught  (via  Greek, 
foot-ball,  and  fives)  how  to  rule  men  justly  and  effi- 
ciently when  his  time  came  to  do  so. 

The  only  mistake  about  the  whole  scheme  was  that 
they  made  three-quarters  of  him  into  an  ordinary 
English  gentleman,  and  in  Great  Britain,  at  any  rate, 
the  remaining  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  Berber  was  so 
much  submerged  as  to  be  unnoticeable. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  BEGINNING   OF    WAR 

44npHANK  you,  sir,"  said  Captain  Kettle,  "but 
•^  I'll  not  step  down  to  dinner  this  evening. 
As  soon  as  dark  comes  away,  I'm  going  to  up-anchor 
and  as  quietly  as  may  be  move  the  Wangaroo  across 
to  another  berth.  Mr.  Bergash  may  be  all  right,  sir, 
as  you  and  Miss  Chesterman  appear  to  think,  though 
we've  only  his  word  for  it,  and  though  you  must 
allow  me  to  still  hold  my  own  opinion.  But  there  are 
two  thousand  dark  Africans  either  on  the  Norman 
Towers  or  lying  hid  near  her,  and  they  aren't  doing 
that  for  the  good  of  their  own  health  —  or  ours." 

"  Have  it  your  own  way,"  said  Sir  George  rather 
stiffly.  "  But  I  think  you're  carrying  prejudice  too 
far.  I've  lived  in  Louisiana  and  I've  lived  in  India, 
and  I've  as  much  dislike  for  the  black  man  otherwise 
than  as  a  black  man  as  it's  possible  to  have.  I've  got 
no  possible  use  for  the  ignorant  Exeter  Hall,  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  theory  of  a  man  and  a  brother.  But  I'm 
not  wilfully  blind.  This  fellow  isn't  an  African  nig- 
ger any  more  than  I  am.  He's  a  blue-eyed,  pure- 
blooded  Berber!" 

"  Well,  sir,"  retorted  Kettle  doggedly,  "  he  may  be 
Neapolitan,  if  you  choose,  and  I'm  sure  his  tongue's 

2X2 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WAR  213 

glib  enough  for  it ;  but  I  don't  like  him,  and  there  you 
have  a  solid  fact.  I  can't  talk  Cambridge  College,  and 
polo  in  the  moonlight  to  him,  like  you  and  Miss  Violet 
do,  but  I  can  listen  and  I  can  use  my  eyes,  and  if  Mr. 
Bergash  is  here  for  philanthropy  alone,  and  not  for 
Mr.  Bergash  —  well,  I'm  content  to  have  my  ticket 
indorsed  for  competency." 

"Right,"  said  Sir  George  shortly;  "then  if  you 
won't  dine  with  him,  you  won't.  Can  I  send  you 
anything  up  ?  " 

"  I'd  like,  sir,  a  sandwich  and  a  bottle  of  beer,  if  the 
steward  would  bring  me  that  when  he's  served  dinner. 
But  there  need  be  no  hurry;  I  shall  be  busy  for  the 
next  half-hour." 

Captain  Kettle  wished  to  give  a  message  to  his  crew, 
but  he  did  not  call  them  on  deck,  as  he  had  a  shrewd 
idea  that  such  items  would  be  noted  from  the  shore 
and  intelligently  commented  on.  Instead,  he  told 
his  three  mates  and  the  boatswain,  one  by  one,  to  go 
to  the  chart  house ;  and,  when  they  were  all  assembled, 
joined  them  there,  and  gave  his  orders  in  a  few  words. 

"  I  may  be  wrong,  but  I  expect  those  niggers  will 
try  and  get  aboard  here  to-night.  Now,  there'll  be 
no  moon,  and,  with  this  heat  haze  about,  no  light 
from  the  stars.  The  night'll  be  as  black  as  the  inside 
of  a  heathen,  and  I'm  not  going  to  let  our  amateurs 
play  around  with  those  rifles.  They'd  be  just  as  likely 
to  shoot  some  one  on  board  here  as  Moors  over  the 
side;  and  when  they'd  shot  their  magazines  empty 
they'd  be  whanging  in  with  the  butt  and  smashing 


214     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

good  rifles  which  will  perhaps  be  of  use  later  on. 
Bo's'n,  I  believe  there's  a  keg  of  spare  iron  belay ing- 
pins  in  your  locker?  " 

"  There  is,  sir." 

"  Then  you  will  deal  out  one  belaying-pin  to  every 
man  on  board,  and,  if  the  hands  are  wanted,  you 
mates,  and  you,  Mr.  McTodd,  will  see  that  they  are 
strung  out  at  reasonable  intervals  round  the  rail.  I 
guess  an  old  belaying-pin,  well  driven,  will  cave  in 
even  a  nigger's  skull.     That  will  do." 

Night  fell,  as  it  falls  in  the  tropics  —  as  though  the 
sun  had  been  shut  into  a  box,  and  by  her  captain's 
orders,  all  lighted  port-holes  and  skylights  on  the  little 
steamer  were  carefully  shrouded.  With  the  scheme 
of  his  manoeuver  clear  in  his  mind,  Captain  Kettle, 
in  the  hour  preceding  dark,  had  already  run  his  noisy 
steam  winches  and  derricks  for  the  handling  of  im- 
aginary cargo,  so  that,  if  the  sound  traveled  to  the 
shore,  the  listeners  there  should  get  accustomed  to  it, 
and  as  a  consequence,  when  the  windlass,  which  was 
worked  by  a  messenger  chain  from  the  forward  winch, 
did  start  heaving  up,  the  only  impression  conveyed  to 
the  beach  would  be  that  the  uneasy  N'zaranees  were 
again  shifting  cargo.  And  when  his  anchor  was  once 
a-trip,  with  engines  just  turning  at  dead  slow  ahead, 
and  binnacle  light  carefully  shrouded,  Kettle  moved 
the  VVangaroo  half  a  mile  farther  north,  and  again 
dropped  anchor  and  held  there  to  a  short  cable. 

From  the  saloon  below  there  drifted  up  the  chatter 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WAR  215 

of  voices  and  whiffs  of  laughter.  Captain  Kettle  bit 
his  lips  with  vexation.  He  knew  well  enough  how 
sound  travels  across  water,  and  it  looked  as  if  his 
ruse  of  shifting  anchorage  would  be  wasted.  But  it 
crossed  his  mind  that  in  a  moment  of  enthusiasm  Sir 
George  Chesterman,  M.P.,  had  offered  to  serve  under 
him  —  and  obey  orders  —  in  any  capacity  he  cared  to 
name.  What  if  he  were  to  go  below  and  ask  for 
silence  ? 

With  ordinary  passengers  he  would  have  done  it  in 
a  moment,  yes,  have  ordered  it,  and  one  can  imagine 
that  under  the  circumstances  his  manner  would  have 
been,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  brusk.  But,  as  things  were, 
the  whole  theory  of  his  sea  upbringing  rose  in  arms  at 
the  idea.  An  owner  was  an  ovv'ner  all  the  seas  over. 
Captains  existed  merely  for  owners'  profit  and  pleas- 
ure.    And  so  he  stayed  on  deck  and  did  his  best. 

A  voice  and  a  whiff  of  whisky  came  to  him  out  of 
the  dark. 

"Captain?" 

"Yes,  Mr.  McTodd." 

"  Aboot  yon  black  fellow  the  stewardess  kenned. 
For  why  did  he  ask  if  I  could  do  him  a  bit  job  ashore, 
and  offer  me  a  fi'pound  note  on  account  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  But  naturally  you  told  him  you 
were  engaged  here,  and  he  could  put  his  money  where 
the  monkey  put  the  nuts." 

"  Man,"  said  McTodd  solemnly,  "  you'd  never 
guess  it  of  me,  but  I'll  tell  ye  in  confidence  that  I 
come  from  the  Norrth,  and  up  there  it's  said  to  be 


2i6     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

unlucky  if  you  refuse  siller  if  it's  as  good  as  offered 
ye.  So  I  —  I  angled  him,  and  I  landed  the  note.  I 
changed  it  with  the  steward  to  make  sure  it  was  a 
good  one." 

"  And  bought  a  bottle  of  ship's  whisky  with  part  of 
the  change." 

"  Well,  I  couldn't  ask  the  steward  to  do  a  delicate 
bit  of  financial  business  like  yon  without  giving  him 
a  profit  on  the  turnover.  At  least,  that's  no'  the 
custom  where  I  come  from.  Mon,  meanness  such  as 
that's  a  thing  you'd  never  find  in  a  Scot." 

"  Get  on.  You  drank  half  the  whisky,  and  what 
then?" 

"  Now,  Captain,  see  here.  I  will  no'  be  spied  on. 
Tell  me  in  a  worrd,  who's  your  infonnant  aboot  the 
whisky?  " 

Kettle  turned  on  him  savagely.  "If  you've  come 
here  on  business,  let  me  hear  what  it  is  without  fur- 
ther maundering.  If  you've  nothing  useful  to  say, 
get  down  off  my  bridge.  If  you  waste  any  more  of 
my  time,  I'll  kick  you  to  the  deck,  and  then  send  you 
to  your  room,  you  —  you  dissolute  mechanic." 

"  And  if  I  think  myself  too  useful  on  deck  to  be 
incar  —  I  should  say  in-car-cerated,  what  then?" 

"  Then,  by  James,  if  you  can't  remember  you're  an 
officer  now,  and  you  won't  go  peacefully  when  you're 
ordered,  I'll  have  you  frog's-marched  there  by  the 
watch  and  put  in  irons.  I'm  captain  aboard  here,  and 
you've  got  to  know  it." 

"  The  vara  worrds  Miss  Dubbs  said  to  me  when  I 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WAR  217 

telled  her  she  could  twiddle  ye  round  her  little  finger 
if  she  felt  that  way  inclined.  And,  pagh !  she  seemed 
to  think  that  because  ye  held  a  master's  certificate  ye'd 
be  unapproachable.  I  telled  her  that  men  with  mas- 
ter's tickets  could  be  bought  at  threepence  a  dozen 
near  the  docks  in  any  seaport  town,  but  she  preferred 
her  own  way  of  it.  It's  curious,  come  to  think  of  it, 
why  she  should  care  for  you." 

"  I'll  trouble  you  not  to  couple  Miss  Dubbs'  name 
with  mine." 

"  But,  man,  you're  engaged  to  her." 

"  I  was.  But  she  found  reason  to  dislike  me,  and 
very  wisely  broke  it  off." 

"  Weel,  I'm  no'  questioning  her  wisdom.  She's  a 
capable  buddy.  She  sewed  a  button  on  ma  uniform 
coat  as  neat  as  I  could  have  done  it  myself.  And  you 
say  she's  no'  engaged  at  the  moment?  Gosh!  I'll 
spark  the  lassie  masel'." 

Captain  Kettle's  fingers  twitched. 

"If  you'll  no'  be  wanting  that  brilliantine  you  used 
for  your  hair,  I'd  be  glad  of  the  loan  of  it." 

"  Get  down  off  this  bridge." 

"  I'm  going  to  bask  in  the  arrums  of  beauty  — " 

Captain  Kettle's  hand  shot  out  and  caught  the  en- 
gineer's collar  before  he  had  descended  three  steps  of 
the  steep  bridge  ladder,  and  jerked  him  suddenly 
backward,  and  deposited  him  sitting  on  the  deck  of 
the  upper  bridge. 

"  Stop  it,"  he  said  In  a  sharp  whisper,  "  and  sober 
up,  and  look  there." 


2i8     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

He  stretched  out  an  arm  into  the  night,  and  pointed 
to  the  south  and  east.  The  black  velvet  darkness  was 
flawed  by  a  flicker  of  infinitesimal  flames. 

"  Phosphorescence,"  said  McTodd.  "  The  outer 
splashes  of  light'll  be  oars.  Gosh,  but  she's  a  big  craft, 
yon.  She'll  have  a  dozen  oars  a-side.  She'll  be  one 
of  those  big  k herbs/' 

"  A  lighter." 

"  The  Moorish  word's  kherb,  as  ye'd  know  if  ye'd 
my  education.  I  don't  see  for  why  ye're  surprised. 
It's  the  natural  sequence  of  events  that  the  other 
blackguards  should  come  off  to  join  their  chief  who's 
tucked  his  way  in  among  us  so  cannily.  I  should  say 
that  the  throat-cutting  will  begin  within  five  seconds 
of  their  coming  over  the  side." 

"  That's  my  idea  of  it,  and  I've  made  my  prepara- 
tions accordingly.  The  mates  know,  and  the  deck- 
hands are  standing  by.  But  I've  another  surprise 
packet  for  them  first.     What  steam  have  you  ?  " 

"  Enough,  maybe,  to  just  turn  her  over  with." 

"  I  told  that  old  fool  of  a  chief  to  keep  steam  for 
full  speed  all  night.  By  James,  I'll  log  that  man  for 
incompetence !  " 

"  You  should  have  given  your  order  through  me, 
and  I  would  have  seen  it  carried  out.  The  chief's 
vera  canny  on  coal,  and  in  private  I  may  tell  ye  I 
suspect  him  of  being  an  Aberdonian.  But  I'll  away 
below  and  get  a  boost  on  those  gages." 

The  oasis  of  phosphorescence  crawled  slowly  across 
the  black  desert  of  the  night,  and  presently  a  second 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WAR  219 

flickering  oasis  disclosed  itself,  and  then  a  third,  and 
a  fourth. 

"  Four  big  lighters  crammed  with  men,  and  all  of 
them  of  the  true  fighting  trade,"  mused  Captain  Ket- 
tle. "  If  they're  the  ordinary  cargo  kherb  of  the 
Northwest  coast  they'll  carry  a  hundred  and  twenty 
hands  apiece  in  smooth  water  like  this  lagoon.  That 
means  four  to  five  hundred  enthusiasts  coming  to  call, 
and  all  carrying  cutlery.  Well,  if  they  go  direct  to  my 
old  anchorage  I'm  free  to  own  they'll  get  a  surprise." 

Silence  and  secrecy  was  the  order  of  the  night. 
Mr.  Trethewy,  the  mate,  received  orders  and  departed 
swiftly  to  the  forecastle  head.  The  carpenter  was 
dropped  into  the  cable-locker,  and  battened  down  there 
so  that  the  noise  of  his  knocking  out  a  shackle  should 
not  make  itself  heard.  Then  the  heavy  cable  was 
muffled  in  every  way  possible,  and  dropped  through 
the  hawse-hole,  link  by  link,  and  finally  let  go  with  a 
rope  and  buoy  to  mark  it.  Phosphorescence,  now  that 
they  were  looking  for  it,  showed  them  the  line  of  the 
cable  right  down  to  the  lagoon's  floor,  and  to  the  men 
on  board  seemed  an  open  advertisement  of  their  posi- 
tion; but  no  trace  of  this  reached  the  kherhs,  and  they 
plodded  steadily  along  their  course  to  the  Wangaroo's 
old  anchorage.  Steam  meanwhile  was  beginning  to 
pour  quietly  through  the  escape  pipe,  and  Captain 
Kettle  nodded  appreciatively  to  himself  as  he  took  the 
temperature  from  time  to  time  from  the  outside  of  the 
funnel  casing. 

The   leading   kherh    reached    the    spot    where    the 


220   Marriage  of  captain  kettle 

steamer  should  have  been,  eased  her  phosphorescence- 
stirring  oars,  and  disappeared  into  the  blackness  of 
the  night,  and  as  the  others  came  up  and  lost  their 
way  they  also  yanished  into  nothingness. 

Captain  Kettle  put  a  cigar  between  his  teeth,  but 
he  did  not  venture  to  light  it,  nor  did  he  risk  the  clang- 
ing bell  of  the  engine-room  telegraph.  Instead  he 
applied  his  lips  to  the  voice  tube,  and  got  into  com- 
munication with  a  very  sober  and  alert  McTodd,  who 
said  he  had  found  it  necessary  to  put  his  chief  to 
bed.     .     .     . 

The  Wangaroo  gathered  way  slowly  and  without 
noise,  and  Captain  Kettle,  to  avoid  the  clamor  of  giv- 
ing orders,  took  the  steam  steering-wheel  in  his  own 
hands.  The  night  ahead  was  without  beacon,  and 
full  of  a  dense  amorphous  darkness,  but  with  a  sailor's 
knack  of  memory  the  little  sailor  had  the  bearings  of 
his  old  anchorage,  and  of  every  salient  point  of  the 
lagoon  firmly  charted  in  his  head,  and  worked  out  a 
dead  reckoning  of  his  steamboat's  course  as  he  went 
along. 

He  kept  one  eye  on  the  carefully  hooded  binnacle 
and  the  other  roving  through  the  blackness  ahead,  and 
without  mental  inconvenience,  did  sums  each  minute 
as  to  direction  and  distance  run  as  is  the  habit  of 
sailormen,  and  incidentally  kept  an  attentive  ear  for 
the  talk  and  laughter  in  the  saloon  below  to  make 
sure  that  his  owner,  Miss  Chesterman,  and  the  saint 
were  still  merrily  engaged  in  their  occupation  of  kill- 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WAR  221 

ing  time.  And  when  he  reckoned  he  was  within  a 
hundred  yards  of  the  kherhs,  and  had  called  to  Mr. 
McTodd  to  "  whack  her  up  all  he  knew,"  he  was  con- 
scious of  an  elaborate  head  and  a  pair  of  comely- 
shoulders  protruding  above  the  head  of  the  upper 
bridge  ladder  behind  him. 

"  Captain,"  came  a  voice,  "  it's  dark,  and  no  one 
will  see.  May  I  come  up  on  top  here?  I  know 
what's  going  on,  and  I  don't  feel  as  if  I  could  stay 
below,  anyhow." 

"  For  the  lord's  sake,  miss,  go  back  there !  'Tisn't 
safe  for  you  up  here." 

"  It  would  be  no  worse  for  me  than  it  will  be  for 
you.  And  it's  miserable  down  there  in  the  dark,  and 
alone.     Miserable." 

"  But  they  may  begin  shooting  and  all  sorts  of 
things  presently." 

"  It  would  be  no  worse  for  me  than  it  will  be  for 
you."  IMiss  Dubbs  had  come  up  on  the  bridge  by 
this,  and  he  heard  her  voice  behind  and  slightly  above 
him.  The  position  was  desperate,  and  one  can  hardly 
blame  him  for  what  he  did. 

"  Go  aft  a  bit,  and  to  starboard. —  No,  the  other  — 
the  starboard  side ;  yes,  there.  Now,  see  that  boat  on 
the  chocks?  Yes,  that's  it.  Now,  if  you  want  to  stay 
on  this  deck  you're  to  get  inside  that,  and  keep  your 
head  under  the  gunwale,  and  the  Lord  grant  the  boat's 
skin  keeps  out  their  gas-pipe  bullets,  though  I  don't 
think  it  will." 

The  kherhs  had  heard  the  steamer's  coming  by  this 


222     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

time,  as  the  renewed  phosphorescence  from  their  oars 
showed  very  plainly.  But  they  strung  out  into  a  line 
and  gave  themselves  over  as  her  prey.  She  had  worked 
up  by  this  time  to  the  full  eight  knots  of  her  speed, 
and  Kettle  steered  her  into  the  rearmost  kherb,  and 
drove  over  it,  and  then  held  on  for  the  next  ahead. 
Those  of  the  lighter's  crew  who  were  wise  struck  out 
straightway  for  the  shore.  Those  who  had  more 
talent  for  fighting  leaped  for  the  Wangaroo's  low  rail 
as  they  stamped  the  wreck  of  their  own  craft  under 
water,  and  hauled  themselves  up,  and  were  met 
by  frenzied  white  men  flailing  at  them  with  iron 
clubs.  Whack,  crash,  crunch  went  the  belaying-pins, 
and  true  believers  fell  back  into  Paradise  or  the 
lagoon. 

The  Wangaroo  scraped  over  the  ruins  of  the  first 
kherbj  crunched  through  the  second,  and  of  her  own 
accord  put  in  her  celebrated  sheer  to  starboard  and 
bagged  the  third.  But  she  was  a  slow  little  tub  when 
all  was  said  and  done,  and,  anyway,  she  was  not  built 
for  a  ram,  and  the  impacts  had  shaken  her  a  good 
deal,  and  knocked  off  her  pace  and  upset  her  steering, 
and  J?herb  number  four,  furiously  rowed,  managed  to 
beach  itself  and  emit  its  crew  intact. 

"  But  still  I  don't  call  that  bad,"  said  a  quiet  voice 
from  behind,  and  Captain  Kettle  rang  off  his  engines 
and  turned  round  to  gaze  on  a  lighted  cigar  and  the 
face  of  Sidi  Mohammicd  Bergash. 

"  Get  down  off  my  bridge !  " 

The  little  sailor  yapped  out  the  words  with  ven- 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WAR  223 

omous  precision,  and  then  turned  to  the  two  other 
figures  behind.  *'  As  to  you,  sir,  you  may  be  my 
owner,  but  of  your  own  free  will  I  heard  you  offer 
to  serve  under  my  command,  and  I'm  ashamed  of 
your  lack  of  discipline.  As  to  your  place,  miss,  I 
make  no  suggestion,  but  if  you've  heard  all  the  lan- 
guage that's  been  flying  about  on  this  bridge  during 
this  last  ten  minutes,  and  liked  it,  I'm  sorry  for  your 
taste,  that's  all." 

"  I  apologize,  Skipper,"  said  Sir  George. 

"  Very  good,  sir.  Make  it  so.  Take  that  native 
gentleman  with  the  English  accent  down  below,  and 
keep  him  there  till  I  come.  And  if  he  doesn't  want  to 
go,  tell  the  bo's'n  to  put  him  in  irons.  By  James,  I'm 
going  to  have  discipline  on  this  ship,  or  I'll  know  the 
reason  why !  " 

When  these  had  left  the  upper  deck,  out  of  sheer 
delight  in  his  own  skill  in  seamanship  (and  I'm  afraid 
also  through  knowledge  that  Miss  Dubbs  was  a  spec- 
tator in  the  life-boat  behind  him)  Kettle  swung  the 
steamer  round  and,  plotting  a  course  through  the  un- 
relieved dark,  made  back  for  the  spot  whence  he  had 
started. 

He  returned  as  he  had  come,  full  steam  ahead,  and 
only  slow^ed  up  to  bring  the  steamer's  forefoot  to  a 
standstill  on  the  anchor  buoy. 

"  Well,  of  all  the  beastly  gallery  tricks  I  ever  saw!  " 
sneered  Mr.  Trethewy,  the  mate,  on  the  forecastle 
head  as  he  oversaw  the  picking  up  of  the  buoy. 

"  But  don't  you  wish  you  could  do  it  yourself,  my 


224     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

son?  "  hiccoughed  Mr.  McTodd  from  under  the  break 
of  the  forecastle.  "  Painting  deck-houses  is  about  all 
you're  good  at.  I  don't  trust  you  to  make  fast  a 
mooring  rope  unless  I  oversee  it  myself  afterward 
to  make  sure  you  haven't  a  slippery  hitch.  My  young 
friend,  I  tell  ye  that  the  officers  and  crew  of  this 
packet  are  a  great  source  of  anxiety  to  the  Old  Man 
and  myself,  and  if  anybody  dislikes  that  statement 
I'm  free  to  fight  him  this  minute.  And  now,  the 
night  being  hot  and  m.anoeuvers  being  over,  I'm  going 
to  drop  into  the  lagoon  for  a  bit  of  a  swim.  Leave 
me  this  rope's  end  over  the  side  to  climb  back  by." 

In  the  meanwhile  argument  held  sway  in  the  saloon. 

"  I'm  afraid,"  said  the  saint,  "  from  your  point  of 
view  it  must  look  uncommonly  fishy." 

"  I'm  sure  my  skipper  thinks  so,"  Sir  George  agreed. 

"  Well,  I'll  ask  you  not  to  let  him  hang  me  out  of 
hand,  which  I  gather  would  be  his  agreeable  method 
of  making  all  things  entirely  safe;  and,  of  course, 
if  you  insist  on  keeping  me  on  board  as  a  hostage,  I 
shall  have  to  stay.  But,  really,  I  think  I  should  be 
of  more  use  to  you  ashore.  These  aren't  my  people, 
as  I've  told  you,  but  as  kaid  of  the  big  Berber  tribe 
hereabouts  I  have  a  good  deal  of  local  influence." 

Sir  George  Chesterman  rubbed  his  chin.  "  This 
attack  will  take  a  bit  of  explaining,  you  know." 

"If  you  mean  your  captain's  unprovoked  attack  on 
some  boats  that  hadn't  harmed  him,  I  should  say  it 
will." 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WAR  225 

The  big  untidy  Englishman  laughed.  "Of  course, 
those  four  or  five  hundred  armed  ruffians  had  come 
out  merely  for  a  quiet  evening's  row !  However,  my 
dear  man,  we  won't  worry  about  past  history.  The 
question  is :  What's  going  to  be  done  next  ?  We,  I 
should  again  like  to  remind  you,  have  come  here  to 
salvage  that  steamer,  and  the  sooner  we  get  it  the 
better  it  will  be  for  the  neighborhood." 

The  Berber  chief  threw  back  his  head ;  there  was  a 
hard  glint  in  his  blue  eyes.  "  Well,  you  will  not  get 
the  steamer.  By  the  customs  of  this  coast  she  belongs 
to  the  people  of  the  coast,  and  I  am  going  to  see  that 
they  get  her." 

"  I  thought  you  said  an  hour  ago  that  you  were  a 
rich  man.  What  good's  this  wretched  old  wreck  to 
you,  even  if  you  can  realize  on  her,  which  is  doubt- 
ful?" 

"  In  money,  no  good  whatever.  But,  my  dear 
Chesterman,  you  make  the  usual  superficial  English- 
man's mistake.  If  any  one  asks  you  suddenly  what 
is  your  aim  in  life,  you  always  reply,  without  thinking, 
that  money's  the  one  thing  you  want.  You  don't 
really  mean  it,  but  you've  got  into  the  habit  of  saying 
it.  Now,  money  doesn't  amuse  me  a  bit.  With  the 
curse  of  my  English  education  behind  me,  I  tell  you 
frankly  this  country  bores  me  stiff,  and  if  you  were 
to  forget  I  came  on  board  here  under  a  flag  of  truce 
—  which,  of  course,  you  can't  —  and  hang  me  out  of 
hand,  'pon  my  word  I  should  be  a  good  deal  obliged 


226     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

to  you.  And  I'm  sure  it  would  save  you  a  lot  of 
trouble." 

"Of  course,  you  can  be  put  ashore  when  you  wish. 
And  you  may  either  tell  us  now  your  future  policy,  or 
you  can  do  the  other  thing." 

**  Now  you're  angry.  Don't  you  call  that  a  bit 
unreasonable  of  your  brother,  Miss  Chesterman?  I've 
been  quite  frank  with  you  about  the  shore  situation 
and  our  resources,  instead  of  leaving  you  to  find  out 
all  that  for  yourself.  I've  pulled  the  handicap  dis- 
tinctly in  your  favor,  and  yet  I  know  you'll  be  angrier 
with  me  still  when  I  tell  you  that  presently  I'm  going 
to  fight  for  the  possession  of  that  useless  and  rusty 
old  steamer  for  all  that  I'm  worth.  I  wish  you  could 
understand  what  a  boon  fighting  is  to  a  man  who 
comes  of  a  fighting  stock  when  he's  bored  to  death 
with  existing  things,  and  finds,  moreover,  that  his 
amiable  subjects  are  beginning  to  talk  about  constitu- 
tions and  other  absurd  modern  fads,  and  need  some 
smart  blood-letting  to  bring  them  back  to  their  senses 
again." 

Violet  Chesterman  shut  her  fan  with  a  click. 
"  Now,  look  here,  you  two,  this  has  gone  far  enough, 
and,  to  my  mind,  it's  getting  ridiculous.  You  talk 
about  fighting  as  if  you  were  challenging  one  an- 
other to  a  game  of  polo.  George,  go  up  and  fetch 
Captain  Kettle  down  to  have  a  whisky-and-soda,  and 
by  the  time  you  are  back  I  think  you  will  find  that 
Mr.  Bergash  and  I  have  arrived  at  a  friendly  treaty." 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE    CALL    OF    THE    QUEEN 

CAMELS  on  sunlit  sand  —  and  at  a  respectable  dis- 
tance—  are,  I  think,  always  decorative.  From 
an  artistic  point  of  view  it  is  always  advisable  to  keep 
them  there  —  namely,  on  sand,  and  at  a  distance,  be- 
cause nearness  to  the  workaday  camel  quite  takes  the 
enchantment  from  the  view  of  him. 

To  begin  with,  he  is  mangy  from  his  hurricane  deck 
to  his  big  splay  feet,  and  out  of  every  ten  square  inches 
that  ought  to  be  covered  with  hair,  he  wears  nine 
square  inches  bald.  He  emits  evil  noises  and 
an  evil  smell.  He  wears  camel  ticks  about  his  per- 
son which  he  shares  with  any  one  w^ho  comes  near 
him,  and  they  subsequently  have  to  be  removed 
from  one's  body  by  a  minor  surgical  operation.  When 
he  bites  —  which  he  does  with  his  lips,  not  teeth  — 
the  effect  is  very  much  the  same  as  having  one's  fingers 
slammed  into  the  hinge-side  of  a  railway-carriage 
door. 

He  is  as  ungrateful  as  a  Greek,  and  as  treacherous 
as  an  Armenian.  A  horse  will  not  drink  after  him; 
sheep  avoid  the  pasture  he  has  soiled;  and  even  a 
jackal  will  not  eat  him  when  he  is  dead  if  there  is 
.any  other  carrion  within  reach.     Also  he  is  the  only 

22'J 


228     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

possible  beast  of  burden  for  many  thousand  square 
miles  of  this  imperfect  earth's  surface. 

The  camels  tipped  out  from  behind  a  dune,  with 
nodding  heads  and  ridiculous  necks,  and  swung  down 
to  the  beach  opposite  the  rusted  Norman  Towers,  and 
then  held  along  the  hard  sand  northward.  Some  had 
riders,  some  carried  bales,  and  two  wore  hood-shaped 
tilts,  bright  with  blue  and  red  draperies. 

"  The  ladies  will  be  inside  those  covered  contrap- 
tions," Sir  George  explained, 

"  How  ghastly  hot  they  must  be,  poor  dears,"  said 
his  sister.     "  Those  coverings  look  like  carpet." 

"  They  are  carpet,"  said  the  saint,  "  and  of  our 
own  weaving.  We're  rather  proud  of  them.  I'd  got 
some  on  the  floor  of  my  rooms  at  Cambridge,  and  the 
art  people  and  the  furniture  cranks  who  came  to  see 
me  went  into  ecstacies  over  the  coloring.  Also 
there's  camel's-hair  cloth  underneath.  But  a  woman's 
douar  is  by  no  means  as  hot  as  you'd  think.  In- 
deed, in  war  times  we  put  our  wounded  into  them 
to  keep  the  poor  fellows  away  from  the  heat." 

"  There  seems  to  be  a  very  large  escort,"  said  Sir 
George  rather  thoughtfully,  "  considering  that  you 
said  the  country  was  perfectly  quiet." 

Sidi  Bergash  laughed.  "  I  suppose  you  on  your  part 
would  describe  London  as  perfectly  quiet,  yet  when 
your  king  and  queen  go  about  they  not  infrequently 
have  quite  a  small  army  clattering  along  at  the  heels 
of  their  chariot.  I'm  sorry  I  don't  impress  you  as 
anybody  out  of  the  ordinary,  Chesterman,  but  really. 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  QUEEN  229 

when  I  am  at  home,  I  am  a  genuine  potentate,  and  my 
mother's  a  real  queen.  To  he  quite  frank  with  you, 
ceremonial  bores  me,  but  my  mother  likes  it.  She  was 
brought  up  to  it,  you  see.  My  poor  old  dad  was  a 
great  stickler  for  that  sort  of  pageant  and  etiquette. 
I  believe,  to  be  historical,  we  got  it  from  the  Vandals 
in  the  early  middle  ages,  when  our  people  hired  them- 
selves out  as  mercenaries  to  help  in  the  mid-European 
war;  and,  if  you  come  to  think  of  it,  the  modern  Ger- 
mans who,  I  suppose,  are  the  Vandals'  lineal  descend- 
ants, are  just  as  keen  on  pomp  and  circumstance  to- 
day." 

"  I  was  only  wondering  how  we  are  going  to  find 
room  for  them  all.  We're  a  bit  cramped  here,  you 
know,  on  this  little  tub." 

"  Oh,  you  needn't  worry  about  putting  up  all  the 
entourage.  They'll  form  camp,  as  you'll  presently  see, 
on  the  shore,  and  I  should  think,  when  it  comes  to  the 
point,  my  mother  will  prefer  to  sleep  there,  too.  She 
talked  very  big,  poor  dear,  about  her  keen  desire  to 
accept  your  invitation  to  come  and  live  N'zaranee 
fashion  on  a  N'zaranee  ship,  but  I  expect  when  she 
really  tries  it  she'll  detect  a  wobble  even  on  this  smooth 
lagoon.  I  believe  some  of  our  people  did  once  hire 
out  as  rowers  to  a  Phoenician  galley  and  pick  up  a 
certain  amount  of  seamanship  there;  but  that's  quite  a 
long  time  ago  now,  and  since  then  we  seem  to  have 
stuck  pretty  well  to  terra  firma,  and  have  worse  nau- 
tical insides  than  a  Frenchman.  There's  just  one 
more  thing — " 


230     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  Well,  go  ahead,  man." 

"  You  see  the  state  religion  is  Mohammedism,  and 
it's  part  of  the  game  that  our  women  go  veiled.  I 
think  it  rot  myself,  but  you  can't  get  over  the  prej- 
udice of  centuries,  with  the  prophet  at  the  back  of  it 
as  a  closing  retort  to  all  possible  arguments,  especially 
as  the  old  gentleman  is  counted  as  a  direct  ancestor. 
Besides,  as  I've  told  you,  my  mother  is  rather  old- 
fashioned  in  her  ideas,  and  I'm  afraid  she  looks  upon 
my  more  modern  European  views  as  merely  scan- 
dalous." 

"  Oh,  we  quite  expected  your  mother  would  come 
veiled,"  said  Violet,  "  and  I  got  the  captain  to  give  me 
a  big  state-room  that  opens  off  the  engine-room  alley- 
way, and  which  up  to  now  they've  used  for  stores. 
He's  had  what  cases  were  left  sent  down  to  the  hold, 
and  the  stewardess  and  I  have  dodged  it  up  into  a 
really  pretty  little  sitting-room.  At  night  we  can  rig 
the  berths  if  your  mother  comes  to  stay  on  board,  but 
in  the  meanwhile  it's  quite  the  :^enana,  if  that's  the 
word.  The  only  thing  I'm  troubled  about  is  the  cook- 
ing.    Will  she  like  our  food?" 

"  Not  in  the  least.  But  that  need  not  disturb  you. 
She  brings  her  own  food.  I  say,  Chesterman,  you 
might  tell  your  skipper  to  hold  on  with  that  boat  he's 
trying  to  send  awa3^  They'll  be  awfully  mad  if  you 
go  among  them  before  everything  is  ready,  and  I 
can  tell  you  these  elaborate  ceremonial  camps  take 
quite  a  bit  of  time  to  pitch." 

Ashore  on  the  dazzling  beach  the  leading  camel  had 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  QUEEN  231 

halted,  shut  himself  up  in  sections  hke  a  four-joint 
two-foot  rule,  and  discharged  his  white-draped  rider. 
The  other  camels  as  they  strolled  up  swung  out  of  line 
ahead  into  line  abeam,  and  also  came  to  moorings, 
and  the  escort,  pulling  farther  round  to  the  north,  dis- 
mounted, drove  in  their  picket  pins,  and  soon  had  their 
horses  straddled  out  to  impossible  spans  by  well- 
stretched  heel  ropes.  The  diamond  hitch,  which  the 
western  packer  fondly  imagines  to  be  his  own  inven- 
tion, was  patented  probably  by  the  camel  driver  of 
Mecca,  and  anyway  is  in  current  use  in  the  Sahara 
to-day  for  making  fast  a  load  on  that  most  uneasy 
of  all  baggage  animals. 

Drivers  and  escort  jumped  to  the  loads,  threw  off 
the  lashings,  and  opened  bales.  Tent  poles  were  laid 
out  on  level  stretches  of  the  sand  at  unexpected  angles, 
camel's-hair  cloth  was  laid  over  these,  and  then  the 
men  lifted,  and  thrust,  and  pulled,  and  there  was  the 
black  tent,  shaped  like  a  dozen  big  beehives  running 
into  one  another,  of  the  sealed  pattern  that  the  Berber, 
and  the  Bedouin,  and  the  Twareg  have  used  since  the 
beginning  of  time. 

Carpets  were  spread,  and  a  gaudy  red  flag,  lettered 
in  Arabic,  run  up  on  a  pole.  Other  carpets  were 
strung  up  to  divide  the  tent  off  into  chambers,  and  to 
hide  the  crudities  of  the  walls;  and  a  divan  was  set  in 
place  and  loaded  with  cushions.  And  then  the  camels 
which  carried  the  doiiar  were  brought  one  by  one  to  the 
doorway  of  the  tent,  and  made  to  kneel.  The  es- 
cort lined  ujp  on  either  side,  lifting  thick  folds  of  their 


232     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

jellabs  before  their  eyes.  And  so  out  of  sight  of  all 
men,  the  widow  of  the  late  Sidi  Ibrahim  Bergash  and 
her  women  moved  from  their  places  on  camel  back  to 
the  shelter  of  the  black  tent,  and  closed  the  flap  as  be- 
came state  and  sex. 

Thereafter  more  black  tents  went  up,  these  being 
arranged  in  a  guarding  circle,  and  then  the  camels 
were  rearranged,  and  parked  in  outer  circle  beyond 
again,  and  fed.  Each  bubbling,  squealing,  snarling 
brute  had  its  own  particular  table-cloth  spread  on  the 
sand,  with  the  measure  of  date  stones  and  grain  heaped 
upon  it.  And  then  the  blue  smoke  of  cooking  fires 
crept  out  from  the  sand,  and  blew  across  and  twitched 
the  nostrils  of  those  who  watched  upon  the  steamer. 

"  Don't  you  think  it  would  be  polite  to  put  in  a  call 
now?"  Miss  Chesterman  suggested. 

"  Wait,"  said  the  saint.  "  We  don't  hurry  matters 
in  court  circles  on  the  Atlas.  My  lady  mother  "will 
make  a  move  all  in  her  own  good  time.  Ah,  and  it 
won't  be  long  now.  Do  you  see  that  kherb  coming 
out  from  behind  the  Norman  Towers  f 

"  The  one  I  didn't  run  down  last  night,"  Captain 
Kettle  suggested  acidly.  "  I  wondered  where  it  could 
have  got  to.  Well,  I'm  perfectly  ready  and  com- 
petent to  send  that  below  to  join  the  rest  of  the  fleet, 
care  of  Davy  Jones,  if  occasion  arises.  I'm  respon- 
si1)le  for  this  ship,  Mr.  Bergash,  and  if  while  that 
lighter's  alongside  another  turns  up  from  somewhere 
else,  and  tries  to  join  company,  I  shall  just  sink  the 
one  that's  handy  as  a  reasonable  precaution." 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  QUEEN  233 

"  I  should  be  the  last  to  blame  your  wisdom  in 
doing  so.  However,  suppose  you  wait  and  see  what 
happens  before  talking  big  any  more." 

It  was  a  curious  thing  how  Sidi  Bergash  and  Captain 
Kettle  disliked  one  another. 

The  kherb,  rowed  slowly  by  a  dozen  oars,  coasted 
slowly  along  the  shore  till  it  reached  the  camp,  halted 
there,  and  backed  into  the  beach.  Three  men,  bearing 
burdens,  stepped  on  board,  and  the  kherb  pushed  off 
again,  and  slowly  ferried  these  across  to  the  Wan- 
garoo. 

Captain  Kettle  put  down  his  glasses  with  an  angry 
sigh.  The  kherb  was  undecked  and  everything  within 
her  frankly  open  to  the  eye.  There  was  no  chance  of 
ambush  or  sudden  attack,  and  reluctantly  he  allowed 
them  to  bring  up  alongside  the  ladder  without  further 
objection. 

The  three  burden-bearers  came  up  on  deck,  saw 
their  kaid,  did  obeisance  to  him,  and  one  with  hung 
head  delivered  a  message.  He,  like  his  fellows,  was 
a  rich  plum-black  color,  clean-shaved,  and  inclined  to 
corpulence. 

"  Give  the  presents  to  Miss  Chesterman,"  said  Sidi 
Bergash. 

Number  one  stepped  forward  with  a  bale  in  his 
arm,  unrolled  it  with  a  jerk  upon  the  deck,  and  dis- 
played a  carpet. 

"  Oh,  George,  how  heavenly ! "  said  the  lady. 
"What  perfect  coloring!" 

Number  two,  who  carried  a  cushion,  whisked  away 


234     MARRIAGE  OE  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

a  cover,  and  displayed  what  was  evidently  jewelry. 
They  were  apparently  beads,  graduated  from  the  size 
of  pigeon's  eggs  to  the  size  of  turkey's  eggs.  In  color, 
they  were  pale  green,  dull  red,  and  silver. 

"  Aren't  they  pretty  ?  But  what  exactly  are 
they?" 

"  Sus  enamels,"  said  the  kaid,  "  Practically  a  lost 
art  since  his  wickedness,  my  cousin  the  sultan,  has 
killed  off  all  the  people  who  used  to  make  that  sort  of 
thing.  You're  really  supposed  to  wear  them  round 
your  neck,  but  you  needn't  if  you  don't  want  to.  Don't 
jump  when  you  see  the  next." 

Number  three  removed  his  cover  cloth  with  diffi- 
culty, as  it  apparently  stuck  to  the  present  below. 
Miss  Chesterman  beheld  a  copper  bowl,  about  the  size 
of  a  wash-hand  basin,  heaped  up  with  something  that 
looked  like  (as  she  said  afterward)  chicken  food.  It 
was  greasy  in  texture  and  smelt  powerfully. 

"What  is  it,  please?"' 

"  That  is  consconsoiL  It  is  not  the  sort  we  eat 
every  day.  It  is  the  variety  that  only  appears  at  state 
banquets.  We  keep  our  butter,  as  you  know,  in  pot 
jars,  and  lay  it  down  as  you  people  do  port  at  home, 
and  pride  ourselves  on  its  age.  I  should  say  by  the 
whiff  I  got  of  it,  that  the  butter  that  went  to  the 
making  of  that  coiisconsoit  is  twelve  years  old  if  it's  a 
day,  and  it  must  have  been  a  mighty  wrench  to  the 
proud  housekeeper  to  take  the  pot  down  from  the  very 
end  of  the  last  back  shelf.  Also  I'll  ask  you  to  ob- 
serve the  fat.     The  most  corpulent  flat-tailed  sheep  in 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  QUEEN  235 

the  Western  Atlas  has  died  the  death  to  do  honor  to 
you  to-day,  Miss  Chesterman." 

"  I'm  sure  it's  awfully  kind  of  your  mother,  and 
the  carpet  really  is  lovely.  But  I  don't  see  how  —  that 
is,  should  I  — " 

"  You're  not  necessarily  supposed  to  eat  the  couscou- 
soii  yourself  now  on  the  spot.  You  may  give  that  to 
some  member  of  your  staff,  and  I  should  say  Captain 
Kettle  is  indicated  in  view  of  the  officious  care  he 
has  been  taking  of  late  of  your  excellency's  person." 

"  Oh,  don't  chaff,  please.  I  mean  I  want  to  know 
what  one  ought  to  do.  I  never  expected  getting  pres- 
ents, although,  of  course,  one  does  in  the  East.  I 
suppose  I  ought  to  send  something  back." 

"  That  is  the  general  scheme,"  the  saint  admitted 
with  a  dry  smile,  "  and  when  your  presents  have  ar- 
rived and  been  approved  of  at  the  other  end,  then  the 
official  calls  are  paid." 

"  But  please  help  me.  George,  you  owl ;  don't 
giggle.  Mr.  Bergash,  what  can  I  possibly  send  ?  I've 
got  nothing,  absolutely  nothing." 

"  Then  it's  certainly  not  for  me  to  advise." 

"  Oh,  you're  as  bad  as  George.  Would  a  little 
amethyst  brooch  do  for  one  thing?  " 

"If  it's  the  one  you  were  wearing  last  night,  I 
should  say  it  is  far  too  good." 

"  Well,  that'll  do  for  one  present.  And  I've  some 
lace.  It's  Honiton.  I'm  sure  your  mother  would 
like  that.  And  do  you  think  —  no,  never  mind,  I 
won't  tell  you  what  else.     But  I'm  sure  that'll  be  all 


236     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

right.  And  will  these  three  men  take  them  back? 
What  are  they,  by  the  way  ?  " 

"  You  might  describe  them  as  harem  attendants. 
No,  it  wouldn't  be  etiquette  to  send  your  presents 
otherwise  than  by  your  own  messengers.  The 
question  is  whom  to  pick.  They  are  supposed  to  be 
attendants  on  your  person.  For  one  I  should  suggest 
Captain  Kettle." 

"  He  certainly  can't  leave  his  ship,"  said  Miss  Ches- 
terman,  hurriedly.  "  But  I  see  your  point,  and,"  she 
added  to  the  little  sailor,  "  I'm  sure  you  do,  too,  Cap- 
tain.    Would  you  pick  me  three  really  nice  men?" 

"  Certainly,  miss.  The  mate  shall  go  himself,  with 
a  couple  of  the  cleanest  deck-hands  as  the  other  two 
carriers.  They  shall  travel  in  style.  I'll  lend  them 
my  own,  gig  and  a  crew  of  four." 

And  presently  away  went  the  gig,  very  smartly 
rowed,  with  a  large  new  red  ensign  whipping  about 
over  her  stern. 

"  In  these  sort  of  places,"  said  Captain  Kettle,  "  I 
like  no  one  to  be  under  any  doubt  as  to  what  I  am." 

"  I  should  like  to  see  that  little  mate  of  yours  mov- 
ing his  upper  lip  up  and  down,"  said  Sir  George, 
"  when  he  hands  over  the  presents.  I  hope  he'll  make 
the  proper  obeisances  after  the  fashion  of  the  —  er  — 
harem  attendants  who  came  here.  However,  I  dare- 
say they'll  bring  ojff  the  event  without  a  hitch,  as  every- 
body seems  determined  to  be  friendly  now.  Much 
better  this  sort  of  method,  Skipper,  isn't  it,  than  fight- 
ing the  whole  country-side?" 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  QUEEN  237 

"  I'll  give  you  my  opinion,  sir,  when  we're  away  at 
sea  again,  with  the  Norman  Towers  steaming  in  com- 
pany. It's  useless  to  ask  me,  sir,  to  like  Mr.  Bergash. 
I  can't  do  it.  To  my  way  of  thinking  he's  a  native, 
and  he'll  have  all  a  native's  faults  tucked  away  some- 
where, and  the  fact  of  his  having  been  at  Cambridge 
College  makes  him  rather  worse  than  better.  You're 
owner,  sir,  and  you  and  Miss  Chesterman  have  a  per- 
fect right  to  behave  to  him  as  you  please;  but  I  can't 
forget  that  I'm  master  of  this  steamboat,  and  as  that 
it's  my  duty  to  look  out  for  dirty  weather  ahead.  I've 
felt  very  keenly  the  stiffness  there's  been  between  us 
since  Mr.  Bergash  came  aboard,  and  if  I've  been  driven 
to  consolation,  I  think  you'll  own  I've  got  my  excuse." 

Sir  George  stared.  What  on  earth  was  this  queer- 
headed  little  sailorman  driving  at  now  ?  "  Consola- 
tion," he  knew  was  usually  translatable  as  "  whisky  ". 
If  it  had  been  ]\IcTodd,  the  construe  would  have  fitted 
in  perfectly.  But  Kettle  was  not  suspect;  he  was 
neither  teetotaler  nor  drunkard ;  his  was  the  easy 
sobriety  that  never  exceeds.  Finally,  "  I'm  not  good 
at  guessing  riddles,"  Sir  George  said.  "  In  what  form 
is  it  you  take  your  consolation  ?  " 

Captain  Kettle  reached  an  arm  inside  the  chart- 
house  door,  and  produced  a  chubby  volume.  "  Unc- 
tion for  a  Stumbling  Soul,  sir,  is  the  title.  Some  of 
the  verses  in  that  book  are  the  most  splendid  things 
that  have  ever  been  put  on  paper.  They  make  you 
see  corn-fields,  and  smell  violets,  and  hay,  and  hear  the 
cows  coming  home  to  be  milked.     For  a  man  that's 


238     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

never  been  in  the  country,  reading  them's  like  a  peep 
through  the  outer  lining  into  heaven." 

"Good  lord!  What  a  wonderful  book!  Poetry, 
is  it  ?  You  must  let  me  have  a  whack  into  it,  Skipper, 
some  day  when  you've  a  bit  of  time.  Sorry  to  have 
ruffled  you  about  Bergash,  but  if  you've  found  such  a 
satisfactory  antidote,  you're  not  so  badly  off  as  I 
thought."  The  big  man  had  a  keen  sense  of  humor, 
and  as  he  ran  his  eye  through  the  tawdry  sentiment 
in  the  verses,  he  wanted  to  shriek  aloud.  But  he  had 
a  tenderness  for  Kettle's  feelings,  and  kept  his  face 
wooden  and  expressionless.  "  A  truly  wonderful 
book!     What  a  pity  it's  so  little  known." 

"  Real  poetry,  sir,  needs  a  poet  to  appreciate  it. 
But  then  you're  a  poet  yourself." 

"Oh,  am  I?" 

"  I  knew  it  from,  the  first  moment  we  met  and  with 
respect,  that's  why  I  like  you,  sir,  and  why  I  made 
up  my  mind  that  you  should  have  3'our  salvage  if  I 
had  to  root  up  half  Africa  to  get  it.  You  see  there 
are  moments,  and  they  are  mostly  when  things  are 
going  wrong  with  me,  or  I'm  in  tight  places,  when  I 
write  poetry  myself." 

This  truculent  little  martinet  a  poet !  There  was 
real  strain  behind  the  woodenness  of  Sir  George  Ches- 
terman's  expression  now.  He  tried  to  speak  and 
could  not.  Emotion  in  fact  shook  him  like  a  palsy, 
though  he  fought  against  it  vehemently,  and  if  it  had 
not  been  for  a  welcome  diversion  from  the  shore,  it 


THE  CALL  OF,  THE  QUEEN  239 

Is  conceivable  that  Captain  Kettle's  finest  feelings 
might  have  been  irretrievably  shocked. 

As  it  was,  Sir  George  was  able  to  point  to  the  beach, 
and  laugh  with  an  absolutely  clear  conscience.  "  By 
gad!  Skipper,  talk  of  fuss!  Look  there!  You'd 
think  from  all  the  ceremony  that  the  queen  of  the 
East  was  coming  to  inspect  the  navy  of  Tarshish. 
Hovv^  about  getting  her  majesty  on  board  here  though? 
It  won't  do  for  any  ordinary  sons  of  Adam  to  look  at 
her,  that's  plain.  And  at  the  same  time  a  guard  of 
honor  is  what  she'll  obviously  expect.  The  only  way 
I  can  see  out  of  it  is  to  line  up  all  your  deck-hands  in 
two  rows,  and  make  them  hold  their  coat  tails 
before  their  eyes  and  let  her  march  in  state  between 
them  to  the  head  of  the  companionway." 

The  lady's  start  from  the  shore  was  sufficiently 
striking.  The  cavalry  of  her  escort  mounted  their 
horses,  and  setting  them  to  the  gallop,  wove  in  and  out 
of  one  another,  and  fired  their  long-barreled  guns 
high  into  the  air  as  fast  as  they  could  load  them. 
Camel  drivers  with  jellabs  spread  over  their  faces 
formed  a  double  human  pallisade  between  the  royal 
black  tent  and  the  beach,  and  then  and  not  before  did 
the  black  eunuchs  unpin  the  tent  flap. 

Three  women  came  out  profusely  veiled  and  volu- 
minously clad,  and  walked  down  somewhat  clumsily  on 
the  hot  loose  sand  to  the  beach.  From  his  gestures 
those  on  the  steamer  could  see  that  Mr.  Trethewy  was 
hospitably  offering  to  take  them  off.     But  majesty  pre- 


240     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

f erred  her  own  craft,  the  big  kherb,  and  very  possibly 
considered  that  the  smart  gig  was  both  cramped  and 
dangerous.  So  off  she  was  rowed  in  the  ponderous 
lighter,  she  and  her  women  and  her  black  attendants, 
and  the  cavalry  escort  on  the  beach  behind  continued 
their  fantasia,  till  the  salt  reek  of  their  black  powder 
blew  across  the  lagoon,  and  drove  off  the  hawk-tailed 
African  gulls  that  hovered  round  the  steamer. 

Captain  Kettle  (with  his  soul  soothed  by  poetry) 
had  taken  Sir  George's  mocking  suggestion  for  a 
proper  reception,  to  the  foot  of  the  letter,  and  the 
Berber  ladies  waddled  across  the  decks  between  two 
rows  of  self-blinded  all-nation  deck-hands,  who  were 
kept  stiffly  in  position  by  a  promise  from  their  savage 
little  skipper  that  he  personally  would  cave  in  the  head 
of  any  son-of-a-dog  among  them  who  dared  so  much 
as  to  peep  till  the  ladies  were  comfortably  stowed 
away  below. 

The  brown-bearded  saint  met  them  at  the  foot  of 
the  ladder,  and  escorted  them  up  the  side  and  across 
the  deck,  and  Miss  Chesterman  (by  instruction)  re- 
ceived them  at  the  head  of  the  companionway,  and 
Miss  Dubbs  closed  the  door  on  the  party  of  them  as 
soon  as  the  visitors  had  stepped  across  the  high  thres- 
hold. 

Once  down  below,  obviously  there  would  be  the 
difficulty  which  first  arose  round  the  tower  of  Babel. 
But  the  saint  said  it  would  be  quite  in  order  for  him 
to  be  present  as  interpreter.  Even  in  the  strictest 
Moslem  circles  and  in  Berber  petty  courts  it  is  quite 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  QUEEN  241 

within  the  law  for  a  mother  to  unveil  before  her  eldest 
son. 

It  was  Miss  Dubbs  who  broke  the  confidence  (if 
there  was  any)  and  described  the  ladies'  appearance 
and  doings  to  Captain  Owen  Kettle  that  evening  in 
the  quiet  gloom  of  the  starboard  alleyway.     .     .     . 

"  Not  a  bit  black,"  said  she  in  answer  to  a  question. 
"  In  fact  I  should  be  browner  myself  if  I'd  been  in- 
vited on  deck  occasionally  and  not  been  obliged  to 
spend  all  my  time  at  sewing  below.  Oh,  you  needn't 
start  to  apologize,  Captain.  I  know  my  place,  thank 
you.  Anemic,  in  fact,  I  should  call  that  taller  one. 
But  the  astonishing  thing  was  they  were  all  tattooed 
with  blue  lines  across  the  top  of  their  noses  and  the 
middle  of  their  foreheads.  How  any  woman  could 
have  that  done,  and  on  her  face,  too,  beats  me.  And 
their  finger  nails  were  all  colored  red.  I  thought  at 
first  it  must  have  been  something  they'd  been  washing, 
and  the  dye'd  come  off.  But  it  was  too  regular  for 
that,  and  they  were  all  alike.  It  must  have  been  some 
stain  put  on  on  purpose.  I  suppose,  poor  things,  they 
imagine  it  becomes  them,  just  like  the  black  stuff 
they'd  got  daubed  under  their  eyes.  You  know:  the 
same  as  actresses  wear  on  the  stage." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  Miss  Dubbs,"  said  her  ex-ad- 
mirer stiffly,  "  but  as  I  believe  I  told  you,  I  don't  go  to 
the  theater.     I  do  draw  the  line  somewhere." 

"  It's  so  long  since  we've  been  on  friendly  terms, 
that  I  declare  I've  forgot  your  habits,  Captain.     How- 


242     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

ever,  there  you  are :  eyes  like  actresses,  and  powdered 
cheeks ;  finger  nails  manicured  as  I've  said,  and  hps  got 
up  till  they  were  red  as  a  post-office  letter-box.  But 
Africans  though  they  were,  figged  up  like  you  hear, 
there  was  nothing  common  about  them.  It  was  the 
old  lady  that  did  the  talking,  and  she  soon  put  your 
Miss  Violet  in  her  place,  I  can  tell  you.  And  what's 
more,  I  believe  Mr.  Bergash  toned  down  what  she  was 
saying  a  lot  before  he  put  it  into  English.  Oh,  you 
can  be  sure  that  old  lady  thinks  she's  a  queen,  and 
she  acts  remarkably  like  as  if  she  really  was  one." 

"  You  seem  impressed." 

"  I  am."  A  little  shiver  went  through  all  Miss 
Dubbs'  generous  proportions.  "  I'm  not  sure  I  don't 
wish  I  was  home  again,  and  out  of  this." 

"  Well,  you've  nothing  to  keep  you  here." 

"  Nothing.  Absolutely  nothing  and  no  one.  I've 
seen  the  bit  of  travel  that  I  came  out  for,  and  now  I 
wish  I  was  back  serving  at  a  nice  upper-class  bar. 
That  old  woman  made  me  feel  as  if  there  was  a  goose 
walking  over  my  grave.  I  don't  feel  safe  here,  and 
that's  a  fact,  and  I've  no  one  to  look  after  me." 

"  I'd  do  my  best,  if  you'd  let  me." 

"  You !  How  many  times  have  I  heard  you  say 
that  a  captain's  duty  is  toward  his  owner  first,  last, 
and  all  the  time?  You've  Miss  Violet  to  look  after 
and  I've  no  desire  to  trespass,  thank  you.  Good  even- 
ing, Captain.  I  must  get  below  and  tidy  up  my  ladies' 
rooms." 


CHAPTER  XVII 
MISS  chesterman's  warning 

/CAPTAIN  KETTLE,  with  the  professional  as- 
^^  sistance  of  the  Wangaroo's  cook,  who  was  also 
butcher,  was  bargaining  with  some  coast  Moors  over 
five  sheep. 

The  sheep,  with  their  legs  tied,  lay  in  a  boat  along- 
side, Kettle  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  accommodation 
ladder,  and  the  cook  was  in  the  boat  that  sawed  up 
and  down  at  the  foot  of  it. 

The  cook  ran  an  expert  hand  over  the  animals' 
loins.  "  All  very  thin,  sir,  except  this  old  ram,  and 
I  should  say  he'll  be  too  tough  for  the  cabin  to  eat." 

"Do  for  the  fo'c's'le?" 

"  Oh,  he'd  come  sweet  enough  for  them  forrard." 
The  cook  turned  angrily  to  one  of  the  Moors.  "  Give 
over  pawing  me,  you  heathen.  I  can  see  that's  the 
after  end  of  the  beast  as  well  as  you  can. —  They've 
got  flat  tails,  sir,  like  beavers,  and  by  the  feel  of  them 
the  tails  are  just  bladders  of  tallow." 

The  Moor  evidently  caught  his  meaning,  and  nodded 
vehemently  both  to  the  cook,  and  upward  to  Captain 
Kettle. 

"  That's  all  right,  old  son,"  said  the  cook.  "  We 
eat  the  sheep's  smile,  and  when  I'm  let  I  can  dish  that 

243 


244     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

up  very  appetizing,  having  a  Scotch  aunt  by  marriage. 
But  we've  got  no  use  for  his  nasty  fat  waggle."  He 
made  vigorous  signs  of  cutting  off  the  tails  and  throw- 
ing them  into  the  sea. 

The  Moorish  farmer  was  a  picture  of  amazement 
and  expostulation.  He  lifted  wide  his  arms  to  the 
spruce  little  Captain  Kettle,  and  poured  forth  a  torrent 
of  coast  Arabic. 

"  You're  wasting  all  those  athletics,"  said  the  mari- 
ner. "  Cookie's  telling  the  truth  for  once  —  they're 
all  liable  to  have  these  accidents.  No  bono,  I  tell  you. 
Tailo  no  bono.  Tailo  inake-a  conscousoii,  si.  Black- 
man  chop,  cousconsou.     White-man  conspuez." 

Captain  Kettle's  Arabic  at  that  period  of  his  career 
was  elementary,  but  his  accompanying  gestures  were 
vivid  enough  to  supply  all  needful  translation. 

"  Now,  there  are  five  sheep,  si  ?  Good,  you  savvy 
that.  Well,  if  I  take  all  the  flock,  savvy?  All  the 
five,  si?  I'll  give  you,  savvy,  this  gold  coin,  which  is 
a  British  half-sovereign.  Now,  don't  all  you  hay- 
seeds get  excited  and  talk  at  once.  Let  the  agricul- 
turist with  the  shaved  top-edge  of  his  mustache  do 
the  oratory.  You.  Yes,  you.  By  James,  do  you 
heathen  hear  me?  Let  that  man  talk,  and  you  others 
learn  to  keep  quiet,  or  I'll  step  down  into  that  boat 
and  teach  you  how.  Come,  squire,  ten  shillings  for 
the  flock,  or  else  row  away  to  the  next  market  town. 
I'm  not  going  to  stand  here  at  the  front  door-step  hag- 
gling all  day  long  for  a  joint  or  two  of  fresh  meat." 

The  man  stopped,  and  with  frantic  gesture  pointed 


MISS  CHESTERMAN'S  WARNING     245 

to  the  flat  tails  of  the  sheep,  explaining  how  wide, 
how  fat,  and  how  truly  succulent  they  were,  and  signi- 
fied that  the  five  were  worth  five  gold  coins  at  the  very 
lowest  figure. 

"  The  tails  if  you  choose,"  said  Captain  Kettle,  con- 
temptuously, "you  may  cut  off  and  take  home  with 
you  if  you  like.  We're  not  pagans  on  this  packet  to 
have  any  hankering  after  animated  tallow  candles  for 
our  dinner.  And  take  your  ugly  black  paws  off  my 
trousers,  you." 

Captain  Kettle's  neat  pipe-clayed  shoe  was  uplifted, 
and  caught  the  man  who  was  fingering  him  accurately 
on  the  shoulder,  and  sent  him  rolling  over  into  the  bot- 
tom of  the  boat. 

It  is  curious  how  some  things  strike  the  Moor.  In 
nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty  there  would  have  been  a 
roar  of  laughter  from  the  others,  who  would  have 
found  the  action  a  rough  jest  which  exactly  jumped 
with  their  own  boorish  taste.  But  here  was  the 
twentieth  case. 

With  the  quickness  of  light  one  of  the  man's  fel- 
lows drew  a  curved  dagger  from  the  brass  sheath  that 
hung  by  its  red  cord  from  his  neck,  and  flew  like  a 
wildcat  for  the  little  sailor's  throat.  And  with  nine- 
teen men  out  of  twenty  the  sudden  blow  would  have 
got  home. 

Captain  Kettle  was  the  exception.  His  apprentice- 
ship to  the  seas  had  been  thorough,  and  he  was  always 
noted  for  his  quickness.  He  caught  the  man's  wrist 
as  it  descended,  ducked  beneath  it,  and  hove  down. 


246     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

The  fellow's  elbow  cracked  noisily,  the  knife  fell  into 
the  water,  and  the  victim  shrieked. 

"  You  might  want  that  knife  some  day,"  said  Cap- 
tain Kettle,  and  sent  him  after  it,  broken  arm  and  all. 

But  the  other  six  Moors  in  the  boat,  as  though  it 
was  a  signal,  pulled  weapons  and  rushed  in  for  venge- 
ance, and  one  of  them  beat  down  the  cook  with  his 
dagger  hilt  in  passing. 

Kettle  took  the  attack  lightly  enough.  He  ran  up 
the  ladder  half  a  dozen  steps  backward,  lugged  a 
revolver  from  his  pocket,  and  pointed  it  with  steady 
aim  at  the  first  man's  stomach.  He  rushed — and 
was  dropped,  shot  neatly  through  the  shoulder.  Two 
more  followed,  and  were  shot  down,  and  the  other 
three  retired  hurriedly  to  their  boat  and  picked  up  the 
oars. 

"  No,  you  don't,"  said  Kettle,  and  threatened  them 
with  his  weapon.  "  Into  the  water  you  get  and  swim 
if  you  can,  or  drown  if  you  choose,  or  be  eaten  by 
sharks  if  they'll  have  you.  And  if  you've  killed  my 
cook,  who  at  least  can  make  curry,  I'll  plug  the  three 
of  you." 

He  forced  them  furiously  over  the  gunwale  of  the 
boat  at  the  muzzle  of  his  smoking  revolver,  and  then 
stooped  and  made  swift  examination  of  his  man. 

"  Ah,  luckily  for  you  cookie's  not  dead,  and  I  thi'nk 
he'll  be  round  again  directly.  On  deck  there,  Mr. 
Forster.  Send  down  a  couple  of  hands  and  get  these 
sheep  run  up  on  deck.  They  are  confiscated  as  lawful 
fine  and  costs  for  attempted  assault  and  battery." 


MISS  CHESTERMAN'S  WARNING     247 

An  anxious  face  peered  over  the  rail  above. 

"  My  God,  Skipper,"  said  Sir  George,  "  what's  all 
this  shooting?  " 

"  Nothing,  sir,  to  be  worried  about.  I  was  just 
trying  this  gun  of  mine  to  see  how  high  up  it  threw 
when  it  fired.  I've  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it 
takes  a  deal  more  practice  than  I've 'been  able  to  put 
in  at  present  to  make  a  really  neat  revolver  shot.  I 
wonder  if  your  Mr.  Bergash  could  tell  me  whether  the 
parties  I  dotted,  and  who  I  see  are  all  managing  to 
swim  ashore,  are  some  of  his  fellow  Berbers,  or 
whether  he'd  prefer  to  call  them  Moors." 

Captain  Kettle  ran  nimbly  up  the  ladder,  and  in  the 
gangway  came  on  his  owner  wiping  perspiration  from 
a  high  forehead  with  a  tremulous  handkerchief. 

"  The  treacherous  devils,"  said  Sir  George.  "  But  I 
never  saw  a  neater  fight." 

"  Thank  you,  sir,"  said  Captain  Kettle  touching  his 
cap.  "  But  in  view  of  what's  happened  I  want  to 
press  upon  you  my  idea  that  it  would  be  as  well  if  we 
get  across  to  the  old  Towers,  and  took  possession  of 
her  without  further  palaver.  I  daresay  Mr.  Bergash 
may  mean  well ;  as  you  say  so,  I  won't  dispute  it ;  but 
if  we  are  in  for  a  fight  over  at  the  other  side  of  the 
lagoon  there,  I'd  like  to  get  it  over  before  they 
have  time  to  get  ready  any  more  surprise  packets  for 
us." 

"  Ye-es,"  Sir  George  agreed.  "  Just  let's  go  into 
the  chart  house  a  minute." 

When  they  were  there  out  of  earshot  of  the  crew 


248     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

and  the  door  shut, — "  You  know,"  said  the  older  man, 
"  what  we  carry  as  cargo  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  you  mean  those  Winchester  repeaters 
and  cases  of  ammunition?" 

"Yes.  Well,  I've  sold  the  lot.  The  rifles  ran  me 
to  four-pound-ten  a  piece,  and  I'm  getting  ten  ounces 
of  gold  for  every  one,  which  is  somewhere  in  the 
neighborhood  of  thirty-eight  pounds  per  gun.  The 
cartridges  are  to  be  paid  for  at  the  rate  of  two  ounces 
a  hundred,  and  they  cost  me  fifteen  shillings." 

Captain  Kettle  took  a  pad  and  made  rapid  calculation. 
"  That's  a  bit  over  fifteen  thousand  pounds.  I  give 
you  my  best  congratulations,  sir.  That  brings  you 
out  with  a  big  profit  on  the  venture  already.  And 
now  I  want,  if  you  please,  as  captain,  to  give  you  a 
mouthful  of  advice.  When  we  get  that  money  on 
board,  I  want  you  to  let  me  steam  back  to  Grand 
Canary  and  bank  it.  At  the  same  time  I  can  leave 
you  and  the  ladies  ashore  and  come  back  here  and 
finish  the  job." 

"  You  still  think  you'd  be  able  to  get  the  Norman 
Toiuers  out  even  if  the  people  ashore  who  objected 
were  reinforced  by  two  hundred  up-to-date  Winches- 
ter rifles?" 

"  Oh,  I  don't  deny  that  it  will  make  things  a  bit 
tougher,  sir.  But  I've  said  I  can  do  it,  and  that  seems 
to  me  the  end  of  the  matter.  At  the  same  time,  I 
don't  mind  owning  to  you  that  with  the  ladies  off  the 
ship,  and  safe  elsewhere,  I  shall  lose  my  present  nerv- 


ousness." 


MISS  CHESTERMAN'S  WARNING      249 

Sir  George  chuckled.  "  You've  only  heard  half  the 
deal,  and  when  I  tell  you  the  rest  I  believe  that  even 
you  will  be  convinced  that  Bergash  intends  to  play  fair. 
It's  he,  of  course,  who  is  buying  the  cargo.  He  is 
going  to  pay  now,  as  soon  as  he  can  send  for  the  gold 
—  which  apparently  he  keeps  in  his  wine-cellar,  or  is  it 
butter-cooler?  —  and  bring  it  on  board  here  within  a 
couple  of  days.  But  by  his  own  suggestion  he  doesn't 
take  delivery  of  the  rifles  and  ammunition  till  we've 
got  the  Norman  Towers  out  of  the  lagoon,  and  are 
ready  to  sail  with  her  in  consort  ourselves.  Now, 
then,  my  good  Skipper,  play  on  that." 

Captain  Kettle  thought  a  while,  and  then  sighed. 
"  It  seems  simple.  But,  by  James,  to  me  it  looks  too 
simple  to  be  wholesome.  There's  no  denying  that 
the  market  price  of  Winchesters  up-country  in  Mo- 
rocco is  a  lot  more  than  it  is  in  London  or  Connecticut, 
but  Mr.  Bergash  is  a  man  wath  an  English  upbring- 
ing, and  he  knows  how  to  gtt  stuff  out  here  if  he 
wants  it.  Paying  seven  to  eight  times  their  value  for 
Yankee  rifles  is  out  of  all  reason.  Why,  he  could  get 
even  those  shiftless  Grand  Canary  fishing  schooners 
to  run  them  across  here  for  half  that." 

*'  I  didn't  haggle,"  said  Sir  George  rather  stififly, 
"  nor  did  Mr.  Bergash.  He  heard  what  we'd  got,  and 
he  just  made  the  offer  in  round  figures  as  I've  told  you. 
I  took  it.  Perhaps  it  may  throw  a  little  light  on  the 
matter  if  I  point  out  to  you  that  gold  has  relatively 
little  value  up  there  in  the  Atlas.  They  can't  eat  it, 
and  they  don't  wear  it,  and  I  gather  that  they  can  get 


250     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

it  by  washing  out  the  sands  in  the  local  becks  with  com- 
paratively little  labor.  As  regards  a  guarantee  of 
good  faith,  I  don't  see  how  he  could  offer  a  more  con- 
clusive one  than  proposing  to  leave  the  guns  in  our 
possession  till  all  chance  of  using  them  against  us 
would  be  over." 

"  Well,  sir,  you  are  owner,  and  it  is  for  me  to  carry 
out  your  orders.  If  it  doesn't  interfere  with  arrange- 
ments, I  may  tell  you  that  when  the  moon  goes  down 
and  all  is  nice  and  quiet  and  dark,  I  mean  to  take  my 
gig  and  slip  across  the  lagoon  to  where  the  Towers 
is  lying,  and  find  out  for  myself  how  things  exactly  are 
at  the  moment.  The  glass  shows  she  hasn't  an  anchor 
down,  and  I've  had  her  against  careful  shore  bearings, 
and  she  hasn't  budged  a  foot  since  we  came  in  here 
with  the  Wangaroo.  Now  she  was  ranging  about  a 
bit  when  we  came  to  reconnoiter  in  that  surf-boat." 

"  Probably  she's  on  the  ground.  Floated  there  at 
high  water  and  stays  tight  and  quiet." 

"  I'd  be  easier  if  she  did.  I  reckon  the  tide  lifts 
some  four  feet  six,  or  five  feet  inside  here,  and  if  she'd 
grounded  on  the  top  of  high  water,  she'd  show  two  to 
four  feet  more  side  at  the  bottom  of  the  ebb,  accord- 
ino-  to  how  soft  the  bottom  was.  She  doesn't  do  that. 
I  put  the  big  telescope  on  her.  Poor  old  Captain 
Farnish  loaded  her  down  with  that  copper  ore  to  within 
half  an  inch  of  her  mark,  and  she  floats  at  that  with- 
out so  much  as  a  hand's-breadth  of  change.  No,  Sir 
George,  she's  got  water  under  her,  and  she's  not 
anchored.     The  tides,  both  ebb  and  flood,  run  round 


MISS  CHESTERMAN'S  WARNING     251 

that  bight  where  she  is  at  a  good  six  knots,  and  still 
she  doesn't  move." 

"  Then  she  must  be  tied  up  in  some  other  way." 

"  I've  thought  of  a  breast-fast,  sir,  and  I  went  to 
the  foremast  head,  and  stood  on  the  eyes  of  the  rig- 
ging, and  steadied  the  glasses  on  the  truck  so  that  I 
could  see  right  down  on  to  her  decks." 

"Well?" 

"  Her  decks  were  full  of  litter  and  muck,  but  there 
were  no  breast-fasts." 

"  I'm  afraid,"  said  Sir  George  impatiently,  "  that 
all  this  tedious  technical  detail  is  a  bit  beyond  me.  The 
Norman  Toivers  is  there,  and  you  say  afloat,  and  that's 
all  that  really  interests  me.  We'll  pull  her  out  when 
we  are  ready.  In  the  meanwhile  I  can  tell  you  I  am 
pretty  thoroughly  satisfied  with  my  bargain  about  the 
guns,  and  the  main  thing  I  am  concerned  in  now  is  to 
keep  Bergash  in  a  good  humor.  I'm  off  below  for  a 
cup  of  tea.     Come  as  soon  as  you're  ready.'^ 

Sir  George  got  up  and  left  the  chart  house.  On  the 
deck  outside  inquisitive  eyes  stared  at  him  but  he 
spoke  to  no  one.  He  was  distinctly  ruffled,  and  hoped 
to  find  a  more  congenial  atmosphere  below.  In  the 
companionway  he  met  his  sister.  She  was  white- 
faced  and  trembling.  He  took  her  arm  in  a  large 
firm  hand  and  looked  at  her  curiously. 

"  Is  he  hurt  ?  "  she  asked.  "  Oh,  George,  how  dread- 
ful 1     I've  only  just  heard." 

"Is  who  hurt?" 

"  Captain  Kettle." 


252     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  He  is  not.  I  thought  perhaps  you  were  inquir- 
ing about  one  of  your  dark  friends." 

"  Why?     What  do  you  mean?  " 

"  Well  several  of  them  are  hurt,  I  gather,  pretty 
badly.  Your  little  captain  must  needs  pick  a  quarrel 
with  some  local  boatmen  as  to  whether  he  should  pay 
ten  shillings  or  a  pound  for  some  sheep,  and  then, 
when  they  naturally  objected,  he  proceeded  to  shoot 
down  about  six  of  them." 

"  Presumably  he  was  risking  his  life,  and  I  sup- 
pose that's  what  it  amounts  to,  in  your  interests  ?  " 

"  If  you  call  cheese-paring  over  ten  shillings  at  the 
risk  of  upsetting  a  deal  for  fifteen  thousand  pounds 
helping  my  interests,  I  suppose  he  was." 

She  stood  staring  with  round  eyes  over  his 
shoulder. 

"  You  think  only  of  your  money.  And  you  know 
he  might  have  been  killed  —  killed!  Oh,  if  he  had 
been !  " 

Sir  George  tightened  his  grip  and  shook  his  sister's 
arm  gently. 

"  I  say,  you  know,  Violet,  you  must  pull  yourself 
together.  I'm  quite  aware  it's  only  to  me,  but  you're 
rather  giving  the  show  away." 

"  And  do  you  think  I  mind  ?  He  knows.  There's 
truly  no  secret  about  my  caring  for  him.  Emily 
knows,  for  that  matter." 

"  Emily  ?  Oh,  you  mean  the  stewardess.  I  gather 
she  was  engaged  to  him  at  once." 

"  I  believe  she  was.     It's  broken  off  now.     I  don't 


MISS  CHESTERMAN'S  WARNING     253 

know  v\hy,  and  didn't  inquire;  I  was  grateful  enough 
for  the  bare  fact.  I  want  him  myself,  George,  and  1 
mean  to  have  him." 

"  But  I  say,  old  lady,  that'll  hardly  do,  you  know. 
Of  course,  I  twigged  you  were  putting  in  a  pretty  hard 
flirtation  with  the  little  man,  but  then,  of  course,  that's 
only  your  way.  You  always  did  flirt  with  everything 
in  trousers  that  came  along  ever  since  you  were  a  six- 
year-old.  Still  there  are  limits  to  everything,  and 
dash  it  all,  when  it  comes  to  cutting  out  your  own 
maid  with  her  young  man,  well  I  call  it  bad  form." 

"  I'll  admit  what  you  please,  including  the  flirting. 
It  began  with  that  I  suppose.  But  it's  got  past  that 
now.  I'm  hit.  I've  never  felt  this  way  about  any 
man  before,  and  it's  the  real  thing  come  at  last, 
George." 

"  You  mean  you're  really  in  love  with  the  chap  ?  " 

"  That's  the  usual  phrase." 

"  But  you  can't  marry  him.  lie's  an  awfully  decent 
little  fellow  in  his  way,  I  know,  but,  dash  it  all,  Violet, 
do  look  facts  in  the  face.  He  isn't  our  clip.  If  you 
want  a  husband,  you  absolutely  must  get  one  out  of 
your  own  class.  If  you've  really  made  up  your  mind 
to  marry,  why  don't  you  whistle  up  Ingleborough 
again?  He's  a  very  decent  sort  of  chap,  and  I  know 
he'd  have  you  like  a  bird.  If  you  married  this  Kettle, 
you  know  perfectly  well  everybody  would  cut  you." 

She  plucked  away  her  arm,  and  faced  him  defiantly. 
"And  do  you  imagine  I'd  care?  D'you  think  I'm 
not  heartily  sick  of  the  whole  crew  of  them?     Any- 


254     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

way,  you  of  all  people  have  a  precious  small  right  to 
give  advice  on  such  a  subject.  You  did  yourself  what 
you're  advising  me  to  do.  You  married  a  woman  in 
your  own  class,  and  a  bonny  mess  you  made  of  it. 
You  stuck  one  another  just  six  months  if  I  recollect 
my  dates  aright — " 

"  A  year,  your  spitfire  — " 

"  Call  it  that  if  you  like,  and  for  the  last  three  you 
haven't  spent  ten  nights  under  the  same  roof,  and 
only  those  by  the  accident  of  being  asked  to  the  same 
house  party.  You  married  according  to  rule,  and  I, 
with  your  fine  example  before  me,  am  going  to  marry 
to  please  myself.     That  is,  if  he'll  have  me." 

"  Oh,  dash  it  all,  there  can  be  no  question  about  the 
man  snapping  you  up,  if  you're  fool  enough  to  chuck 
yourself  away  on  him." 

She  laughed  rather  bitterly.  "  And  you've  been 
boxed  up  in  this  wretched  little  steamer  with  him  all 
these  weeks,  and  know  him  no  better  than  that?  My 
dear  boy,  I'd  be  the  happiest  woman  in  the  northern 
hemisphere  if  I  thought  Owen  would  take  me  this 
minute,  even  if  I  had  to  go  and  ask  him  myself.  But, 
as  it  is,  I  know  he's  got  nothing  but  civil  words  for  me 
—  at  present  —  and  I  believe  I'm  the  most  miserable 
woman  now  on  earth  in  consequence.  It  will  take 
something  desperate  to  wake  him  up  to  the  fact  that 
he  can  really  love  me,  and  I'm  getting  my  scheme  in 
order." 

"  What  mischief  are  you  up  to  now?  " 

"  You'll  find  out  when  I  begin  to  make  use  of  you. 


MISS  CHESTERMAN'S  WARNING     255 

Oh,  you  needn't  scowl  at  me  like  a  cheap  actor.  You 
a  i  all  the  brother  I've  got,  and  you've  made  a  mess 
of  it  yourself,  and  you're  past  help,  or  I  would  give  it 
to  you  if  I  could.  I  am  all  the  sister  you  have,  and 
I've  never  asked  you  for  anything  big,  and  now  that 
I've  made  up  my  mind  what's  the  one  thing  in  all  my 
life  I  want  and  shall  ever  want,  I'm  simply  going  to 
make  you  help  get  it  for  me." 

"  My  dear  old  girl,  I'd  be  very  glad  to  do  anything 
I  could  for  you  in  reason.  But  I  tell  you  it's  abso- 
lutely preposterous  of  you  to  think  of  marrying  my 
skipper,  and  frankly,  you  must  look  upon  me  as  the 
opposition." 

*'  All  right,  George.  That's  a  fair  and  sportsman- 
like warning.  Sorry  if  I  rather  slopped  over  just 
now.  But  if  I  want  you,  don't  kick  if  you  find  your- 
self being  used.  And  don't  abuse  me  later  on  if  you 
find  I've  run  you  in  for  a  scheme  that's  a  bit  danger- 
ous, when  an  easier  one  would  have  done  if  you'd 
offered  to  help  in  it  decently.  There,  you  may  run 
away  up  on  deck,  and  have  your  tea  up  there  by  your- 
self. Sorry  I  can't  invite  you  down  while  I  have 
mine  with  the  saint  and  her  majesty.  I  did  suggest 
it,  but  the  old  lady's  a  great  stickler  for  Moslem 
etiquette,  and  it  wouldn't  do  at  all  for  you  to  come  in- 
side our  sacred  inclosure." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

A   MYSTERY   IS   SOLVED 

THE  night  overhead  and  around  was  covered  in 
with  a  black  velvety  darkness,  unflecked  by 
gleam  of  moon  or  glimmer  of  star;  but  the  top  of 
every  wavelet  of  the  lagoon  was  tipped  with  pale  phos- 
phorescent light,  and  every  oar  stroke  stirred  up  a 
boil  of  pallid  flame. 

Mr.  McTodd  lighted  his  pipe  and  hospitably  offered 
a  cake  of  black  tobacco  and  an  open  clasp  knife  to  his 
superior  officer.  "  Cut  yourself  a  fill,"  he  suggested. 
*'  We're  illuminated  like  a  shop  window  in  Sauciehall 
Street,  and  tobacco  glow  will  be  lost  in  the  general 
magnificence." 

"I  thank  you,"  said  Captain  Kettle  civilly;  "but 
I've  had  to  drop  my  pipe  for  professional  reasons. 
But  you're  quite  right  about  the  light.  The  lagoon's 
flaring  round  us  like  a  village  fair,  and  if  any  one's 
awake  on  this  side  of  Africa,  and  looking  out,  we're 
here  to  be  seen.  So  I'll  just  follow  your  example,  and 
set  fire  to  a  cigar." 

"  I  wish  I'd  a  boiler-plate  overcoat  like  my  ancestor, 
the  Crusader,  used  to  wear.  The  Moors'll  be  sniping 
at  us  presently,  when  we  draw  within  range  of  their 
gas-pipes." 

"  Moors  or  Berbers.     That  head-man  we've  got  on 

256 


A  MYSTERY  IS  SOLVED  257 

board,  who  says  he's  been  to  an  English  college,  wants 
me  to  believe  that  the  majority  of  the  tribes  round 
here  are  Berbers,  and  they're  as  harmless  as  the  teach- 
ers in  a  Quaker  Sunday-school.  The  only  bad  men  in 
this  section  are  Moors,  according  to  Bergash." 

"  Ye  needna'  explain  further.  It's  always  been 
clear  since  the  creature  first  stepped  up  over  the  side 
that  ye  didna  like  him.  Miss  Dubbs  and  I  rather  fancy 
him  oursel's." 

Captain  Kettle  had  a  violent  comment  on  the  tip  of 
his  tongue,  but  with  an  effort  bit  it  short  and  pulled 
hard  at  his  cigar. 

"  Vara  humorous,"  said  McTodd  with  a  chuckle. 

"  What's  that?  "  snapped  his  superior. 

"  I  was  just  sniggering  at  ma'  thoughts  an'  the 
beauty  of  the  night." 

"  And  at  what  else  ?  " 

"  Man,  I'm  no'  the  pairson  to  abuse  the  confidence  of 
a  leddy.  As  a  man  of  the  nicest  vairtue  yoursel',  ye 
couldna  expect  it  of  me.     Now  could  you?  " 

Captain  Kettle  tugged  at  his  cigar,  and  stared  at 
the  lighted  boat  compass,  and  then  stared  out  at  the 
night. 

"  Weel,  man,  I'm  fair  surprised  at  you." 

"  On  account  of  what?  " 

"  To  lairn  that  you've  a  wish  —  though  you'll  no' 
express  in  worrds  — •  that  I  should  repeat  to  you  what 
the  lassie  said." 

"  You'll  find  yourself  over  in  the  ditch  among  the 
fishes  if  you  don't  change  your  tune." 


258     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  If  I'd  been  a  financier,"  chuckled  the  Scot,  "  I 
dare  have  bet  saxpance  ye'd  have  threatened  violence 
like  that,  or  pairpetrated  it.  Man,  Kettle,  bend  your 
lug  so  the  hands  cannae  hear.  Ye  may  pluck  up  your 
courage.  The  leddy's  conversation  is  the  damnedest 
dull  talk  I  ever  had  poured  into  ma'  confidence.  It's 
all  about  yourself,  and  —  gosh!  man  —  to  starboard 
and  over  the  quarter.     What's  yon  ?  " 

It  was  a  bonfire,  that  suddenly  lighted  and  spouted 
up  into  the  sky,  and  was  as  suddenly  eclipsed  by  the 
blackness  of  the  night. 

"  A  flare,"  said  Kettle,  "  and  as  they  haven't  mineral 
oil  down  here  that  I  know  of,  I  should  say  it  was  some- 
body firing  two  handfuls  of  gunpowder.  Well,  it 
means  that  one  nigger,  at  any  rate,  is  awake  and 
thinking  of  us,  and  that's  better  than  being  dead  and 
forgotten.  Eyes  in  the  boat,  men,  and  attend  to  your 
rowing.  Mr.  McTodd  and  I  are  quite  capable  of  look- 
ing after  our  own  personal  convenience  without  your 
unskilled  assistance.  And,  by  James!  there's  an  an- 
swering flare  away  up  on  the  mountain." 

"  Gosh!  it  looks  as  if  they're  rousing  the  clans  to  do 
us  honor.  Aweel,  I've  no  immediate  use  for  your 
rifles.  Hard  work  with  those  rattle-traps  of  engines 
has  left  my  hand  no'  over  steady.  But  I've  brought 
along  a  three-quarter  inch  spanner,  and  if  you'll  bring 
the  boat  up  to  close  quarters,  I'll  show  you  how  it  is 
used  by  an  expert.  Have  ye  matches  ?  This  talking's 
put  my  pipe  out." 

The   gig  crawled   on   steadily   through   the   night, 


A  MYSTERY  IS  SOLVED  259 

stirring  lambent  flames;  and  twice  more  did  flares  of 
gunpowder  among  the  foot-hills  of  the  Atlas  call  no- 
tice to  the  fact  that  Africa  was  awake.  Captain  Ket- 
tle steered  by  compass  alone,  and  (as  the  current  was 
running  strongly)  had  to  make  a  cast  back  before  he 
found  the  Norman  Towers;  and  even  then,  so  black 
was  the  night  that  the  noise  of  his  oars  scraping  along 
her  plates  was  the  first  advertisement  he  had  of  her 
nearness. 

"  Row  stead}^  men,"  he  ordered,  and  coasted  down 
her  length,  and  then  swung  the  boat  under  her  coun- 
ter, and  brought  up  against  the  ladder  which  hung 
down  her  farther  side.  The  heavy  teak  ladder  had 
rungs  broken,  and  the  davit  to  which  it  hung  was  bent 
outboard. 

"  You  will  stay  here,"  he  ordered,  *'  ready  to  push 
off  when  I  come  back ;  "  and  with  that  he  stepped  out 
on  the  grating  and  ran  lightly  up  the  steps,  and  dis- 
appeared into  the  black  silence  of  the  night. 

Presently  his  voice  called  down  in  a  ghostly  whisper 
from  the  rail  above :  "  Mr.  McTodd,  tell  the  men  to 
pass  the  boat  slowly  round  to  the  starboard  side. 
Mind,  they're  to  work  her  along  inch  by  inch,  so  as  not 
to  stir  the  phosphorescence,  and  I  will  drop  them  a 
rope's  end  overboard  to  ride  to,  just  level  with  the 
break  of  the  bridge  deck.     D'ye  hear  me?' 

"Aye,  aye." 

"And  do  you  come  up  on  top  here  yourself,  and 
bring  that  spanner  you're  so  proud  of." 

Mr.  McTodd's  gait  was  ungainly,  but  his  oil-soaked 


26o     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

slippers  made  no  sound.  Also,  being  a  shipman,  he 
knew  which  way  to  turn  and  what  to  avoid. 

"  Weel,"  he  said  when  he  joined  his  commander, 
"  it's  a  fine  night,  and  I  forget  when  I  enjoyed  an 
evening's  prospects  more  thoroughly.  But  when's  the 
entertainment  to  commence  ?  " 

"  Hold  your  tongue,  Mac,  and  listen.     Listen  hard." 

Mr.  McTodd  removed  his  pipe,  opened  his  mouth, 
and  cocked  an  attentive  ear. 

■**  Well,  what  do  you  make  out  ?  " 

"  I  hear  a  small  slap-slapping  of  wavelets  upon  the 
old  girl's  skin,  and  a  bit  of  a  sough  of  the  wind,  and 
you're  breathing  although  I  reckon  you're  trying  to 
keep  it  quiet;  and  I  think  there's  a  yap  of  a  dog  — 
though  maybe  it's  a  jackal  —  somewhere  among  those 
mountains  in  the  far  distance." 

"  But  where  are  the  Moors  who  should  be  waiting 
around  the  corner  to  jump  out  and  cut  our  throats?  " 

"  I  can  only  hear  what  I  telled  ye." 

"I  can  make  out  no  more  myself.  If  there  were 
men  here  in  quantity  we  ought  to  hear  them  breathing, 
or  rustling,  or  coughing.  Mac,  I  believe  they've 
played  a  game  on  us.  We  came  here  (both  of  us,  I 
suppose)  ready  for  battle,  murder,  and  sudden  death, 
and  it's  my  idea  the  ship's  deserted." 

"  But  we'll  go-look-see  before  I  O.  K.  that,"  said 
the  cautious  Scot. 

"  And  we'll  go  together,  and  stand  by  ready  for 
trouble.     But  it's  my  idea  we  shall  find  none." 

"Aye,"  said  McTodd,  reading  his  thoughts,  "it'll 


A  MYSTERY  IS  SOLVED  261 

look  ugly  if  they've  left  her.  Weel,  we  may  as  well 
begin  where  there'll  be  the  worst  smell,  and  that's 
forrard." 

Section  by  section  they  searched  the  Norman 
Towers.  They  went  through  both  firemen's  and  sea- 
men's forecastle,  and  found  no  living  soul.  Hatches 
were  off,  and  they  peered  into  the  gloom  of  holds,  and 
into  the  gassy  corners  of  bunkers.  They  clattered 
down  the  rusted  engine-room  ladder,  and  hunted 
through  shaft-tunnel,  pump  alley,  boiler  room,  and 
more  bunkers. 

McTodd  climbed  aloft  and  investigated  dusty  cor- 
ners behind  the  donkey  boiler.  They  went  through 
mess  room,  galley,  pantries,  state-rooms ;  they  hunted 
through  more  holds.  They  searched  the  chart  house, 
and  (as  a  last  afterthought)  the  paint  store.  And 
nowhere  did  they  find  a  single  Moor  or  Berber  alive 
or  dead. 

"  This  is  a  beggar,"  said  Mr.  McTodd. 

**  One  can  understand  that  they  would  go  over 
every  bit  of  her  e^'en  more  carefully  than  we  have 
done,  and  loot  right  and  left.  But  the  astonishing 
thing  to  me  is :  first,  the  amount  of  dirt  they  have 
brought  on  board ;  and  second,  why  they  should  have 
left  it  practically  all  in  one  track.  The  decks  below 
were  comparatively  clean,  and  they  don't  seem  to 
have  been  paddling  about  particularly  in  the  cabins, 
for  instance,  or  the  engine-room.  But  from  the  port 
gangway  over  yonder  there  are  two  lines  of  mud  and 
stone  splinters  going  forward  and  aft,  and  then  going 


2(^2     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

thwartships   as   soon   as   there's   a  chance,   and   then 
promenading  all  the  length  of  the  port  side." 

McTodd  scraped  a  match,  stooped  down,  and  stirred 
the  deposit  with  his  finger.  "  There's  too  much  here 
for  them  to  have  brought  aboard  stuck  between  their 
toes  or  smeared  on  their  sandals.  There's  enough 
depth  of  mud  on  these  decks,  Skipper,  to  grow  oats, 
and  it  looks  good,  dark,  chocolate-colored,  fertile  soil, 
too,  if  one  raked  out  some  of  the  splinters  of  stone." 

"  That  rock  they  were  quarrying  from,  and  which 
we  can't  see  in  this  darkness,  is  chocolate-colored,  too. 
Can  you  see  the  loom  of  the  shore-line,  Mac?  How 
far  do  you  make  it  away  from  the  ship's  side?  " 

*'  I  should  say  a  kherb's  length." 

"  That's  exactly  my  idea.  The  shore  here  is  steep- 
to,  and  she  lies  in  deep  water  close  to  it." 

"  She's  as  still  as  if  she  was  docked." 

"  She  is  in  a  dock,  I  do  believe.  I've  an  idea  they've 
lifted  that  stone,  lump  by  lump,  upon  their  shoulders, 
carried  it  down  the  beach,  towed  in  a  big  kherb  to  act 
as  floating  gangway,  carried  it  along  that  and  up  the 
side  —  and  that's  how  that  big  teak  ladder  got  broken, 
by  a  rock  falling  on  it.  Then  they've  shouldered 
it  over  the  decks  here,  dropping  bits  by  the  way;  and 
then  they've  pitched  it  over  the  port  side  into  the 
lagoon.  There  were  hundreds  of  them,  and  there 
were  thousands  upon  thousands  of  tons  of  the  stone. 
They  were  quarrying  it  during  all  the  days,  and  un- 
der cover  of  the  night  they  were  tipping  it  over  the 
Towers'  port  rail,  and  building  up  a  dock  wall  of  rub- 


A  MYSTERY  IS  SOLVED  263 

ble  from  the  lagoon  floor  to  pen  her  in.  By  James, 
Mac,  I  was  boasting  to  Sir  George  not  many  hours 
back  that  I  would  pull  the  old  boat  out  of  here  in  spite 
of  all  the  Berbers  in  Africa,  and  I've  never  yet  broken 
my  word.  Man  and  boy,  I've  done  a  good  many 
things  to  be  ashamed  of,  but  telling  lies  is  not  one  of 
them,  and  it  looks  as  if  here  I've  made  a  commence- 
ment." 

"  Man,  I'm  vara  afraid  you're  right.  What's  that 
you're  doing?  " 

"  Stripping,   I'm  going  overboard  to  make   sure." 

"  Hold  you,"  said  the  Scot.  "  I'm  the  better  diver 
of  the  two,  as  we've  proved  already,  and  those  ducks 
ashore  are  still  signaling  to  one  another  with  gun- 
powder flares  in  the  local  Morse  code.  If  there's 
trouble,  the  hands  in  the  boat  will  take  advice  better 
from  you  than  me." 

Owen  Kettle,  master  of  the  s.s.  Wangaroo,  was 
the  last  man  on  earth  to  take  what  practically 
amounted  to  an  order  from  one  of  his  own  under- 
lings, and  I  merely  record  this  one  instance  in  which 
he  let  Mr.  McTodd  have  his  own  way  to  show  how 
badly  he  was  hit  by  the  dismaying  discovery  he  had 
just  made. 

He  had  boasted  —  yes,  it  amounted  to  that,  bragged 
(as  he  told  himself  bitterly)  that  he  could  do  a  cer- 
tain thing;  and  behold  it  had  become  impossible.  He 
had  been  confident  in  the  skill  and  strength  of  his  own 
right  arm,  in  the  breadth  of  his  resourcefulness,  in 
the  force  of  his  own  brazen  courage,  and  behold  a  set 


264     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

of  cunning  savages  had  made  the  feat  he  had  promised 
to  perform  a  physical  impossibihty. 

Savages?  Yes,  but  from  the  very  start  he  had  al- 
ways held  to  a  suspicion  that  there  was  a  white  man 
at  the  back  of  this  active  hive,  directing  them.  White 
man?  Why  not  that  dog  of  an  infidel,  Sidi  Mahom- 
med  Bergash? 

Captain  Kettle  had  come  to  believe  in  his  own  in- 
stincts, and  openly  and  frankly  he  had  mistrusted 
this  Moor  or  Berber,  or  whatever  he  was,  with  the 
English  education,  ever  since  he  had  seen  him  for  the 
first  time  ride  up  along  the  beach,  and  sit  on  a  horse 
that  straddled  out  its  legs  as  though  it  were  standing 
to  be  photographed  in  a  show  ring. 

He  slid  down  a  rope  into  the  boat  and  waited  for 
Mr.  McTodd.  That  expert  reappeared  on  the  sur- 
face from  time  to  time,  took  in  air  supplies,  kicked 
up  his  heels,  and  disappeared  to  make  further  ex- 
plorations. 

Finally  he  swam  with  a  vigorous  side-stroke  back  to 
the  boat,  jerked  himself  up  to  her  stern,  and  stepped 
inboard. 

"  Ye  may  get  back  home.  Captain,"  said  he,  reach- 
ing for  his  clothes,  "  as  fast  as  ye  like.  The  survey 
of  the  sea  floor's  clearly  mapped  in  my  head.  And 
I  may  say  the  contours  are  —  well,  are  as  ye  surmised 
—  or  worrse.  Gosh,  and  they  say  in  the  school-books 
that  I  was  brought  up  on  in  Ballindrochater  that  it's 
to  ants  we're  to  look  up  as  the  most  industrious  ani- 
mals on  the  face  of  the  globe.     Well,  after  to-night's 


A  MYSTERY  IS  SOLVED  265 

experience,  I  shall  just  have  to  write  a  postscript. 
It's  prodigious  the  work  these  pagans  must  have  put 
in.     How's  the  tide  ?  " 

"  An  hour  past  flood." 

"  Weel,  there's  a  bank  of  stone  rubble  down  there 
wide  enough  to  carry  a  railroad.  It's  a  matter  of 
twelve  feet  down  below  the  water  surface  now,  and 
I  should  say  is  just  nicely  covered  at  the  bottom  of  the 
ebb.  But  it  runs  up  to  the  rock  ahead,  and  to  the 
shoal  water  astern,  and  I  guess  friend  Bergash  and 
his  clansmen  have  got  the  Norman  Tozvers  fixed  here 
as  firmly  as  if  they'd  got  her  bolted  down  into  the 
bed-plate  of  Africa  and  lock-nutted  through  to  China 
below." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

VIOLET   FORCES   THE   PACE 

NERVOUSNESS  in  Mr.  Trethewy,  the  mate  of 
the  Wangaroo,  found  outward  expression  in  his 
upper  lip  and  nose.  Always  when  spoken  to  he  an- 
swered with  a  twitch  of  these  organs,  and  even  when 
stared  at,  his  nose,  which  was  of  a  fine  Roman  mold, 
would  respond,  in  spite  of  all  its  wearer's  most  strenu- 
ous efforts  to  appear  unconcerned.  He  was  fully 
aware  of  his  failing  and  utterly  impotent  to  cure  it; 
and  if  ever  a  man  carried  a  daily  cross  in  the  sight  of 
all  men,  Trethewy  wore  his  in  the  middle  of  his  face. 

It  was  this  ofiicer,  then,  who  met  his  fellow  officers 
of  the  reconnoitering  party  at  the  Wangaroo's  gang- 
way, and  for  a  while  he  was  so  violently  contorted  by 
his  complaint  that  speech  was  altogether  beyond  him. 

There  were  moments  when  Captain  Kettle,  who  had 
small  enough  patience  with  this  sort  of  thing,  delib- 
erately barked  at  the  man  until  he  straightened  his  lip 
and  spoke.  But  on  this  particular  occasion  he  saw 
there  was  news  and  dreaded  what  it  might  be.  He 
let  his  mate  down  as  lightly  as  he  knew  how.  He 
took  the  cigar  from  his  lips,  said  quietly,  "  Yes,  Mr. 
Trethewy,"  and  waited.  With  a  supreme  effort,  he 
did  not  even  stare  at  the  man,  but  swung  his  eyes  to 

266 


VIOLET  FORCES  THE  PACE  267 

the  lagoon,  which  was  now  flecked  with  phosphores- 
cence where  the  tiny  breakers  were  whipped  up  by  the 
land  breeze,  and  waited. 

"  They're  gone,"  said  the  mate,  when  at  length  he 
had  thawed  out  sufficiently  to  speak. 

"  Who  have  gone  ?  " 

The  junior  officer  was  stricken  with  another  spasm 
worse  than  the  first,  and  Captain  Kettle  noted  that 
practically  the  whole  of  both  watches  were  stowed 
away  in  the  shadows  on  deck,  keenly  listening.  "  Now 
then,  Mr.  Trethewy,  get  on,  man,  get  on.  Who  have 
gone  ?  " 

"  The  caboodle  of  them,"  the  mate  blurted.  "  O- 
0-Owner,  sister,  and  decorative  maid.  If  only  you 
wouldn't  bustle  a  man  so,  sir,  I  could  tell  you  all  right. 
That  dark  chap  with  the  white-man  frills  has  gone 
with  them.  Saint,  I  think  you  call  him;  but  as  no- 
body's introduced  me  to  him,  I  can't  ping-ping-ping- 
ping  say.  I'm  not  the  sort  of  officer  who  sucks  in- 
formation about  passengers'  guests  out  of  the  steward. 
I  tried  to  stop  'em,  and  couldn't;  and  if  you  think  my 
conduct's  unsatisfactory,  sir,  you  may  sign  me  off  at 
the  next  port  we  touch  at,  and  I'll  not  com-ping-ping- 
plain." 

"  But,  Great  James,  man,  where  have  they  gone?  " 

"  On  a  cir-circular  tour  round  Africa,  for  anything 
I  know.  I  did  ask  miss.  I-I-I  said  I  hoped  it 
wouldn't  rain,  and  they'd  find  the  roads  good,  and 
where  were  they  going?  But  she  ping-ping  wouldn't 
hear  me.     Then  I  asked  Sir  George,  and  he  told  me 


268     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

straight  enough  to  mind  my  own  —  ping  —  bally  busi- 
ness.    As  for  that  stuck-up  maid  — " 

"If  you  don't  take  care  of  your  language,"  said 
Kettle  furiously,  "  I'll  fling  you  overboard,  you  bloom- 
ing lump  of  incompetence!  I  leave  you  in  charge  of  a 
steamboat  at  anchor  for  a  matter  of  three  hours,  and 
as  soon  as  my  back  is  turned  you  capsize  every  ar- 
rangement I  have  made." 

This  was  obviously  unfair,  and  the  mate,  who  was 
in  reality  a  young  man  of  spirit,  had  every  intention 
of  entering  a  vigorous  protest;  but  his  infirmity  de- 
scended on  him  with  renewed  vigor,  and  left  him 
doubly  tongue-tied  and  defenseless  under  his  superior 
officer's  tornado  of  words. 

"Go  to  your  room,  sir!"  Kettle  finished  up  furi- 
ously.    "Where's  Mr.   Forster?" 

"  Second  mate's  turned  in,  sir,"  a  voice  from  the 
darkness  volunteered,  and  without  further  words  Cap- 
tain Kettle  walked  ofiF  briskly  below  to  the  officers' 
quarters  under  the  break  of  the  poop. 

The  fat  old  second  mate  was  either  fast  asleep,  or 
was  shamming  to  be  in  that  condition.  Kettle,  how- 
ever, shook  him  without  qualms.  "  Wake,"  he 
snapped.  And  when  the  second  mate,  who  was  a 
stupid  man,  and  prided  himself  on  his  stupidity, 
opened  one  eye  only,  and  that  with  extreme  care,  Cap- 
tain Kettle  took  two  hands  to  him,  and  shook  with 
such  fine  vigor  that  there  could  be  no  doubt  about 
sleep  fleeing  before  such  an  onslaught. 


VIOLET  FORCES  THE  PACE  269 

"  Now  then,  hear  me.  .Were  you  on  deck  when 
these  people  went  away  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  And  made  no  effort  to  stop  them?  " 

"  No." 

"Do  you  know  where  they've  gone?" 

"  No." 

"  Did  you  hear  them  say  anything  about  their 
plans?" 

"  No." 

"  Did  you  see  which  direction  they  took  when  they 
got  ashore?  " 

"No.  If  that's  all  the  information  you  want,  this 
is  my  watch  below,  and  I  wish  to  sleep." 

"Oh,  do  you?"  said  Captain  Kettle.  "Well,  if 
you  want  me  to  put  hands  on  you  again,  you'd  better 
try  and  do  it.  I've  just  sent  the  mate  to  his  room. 
So  you're  mate,  and  you'd  better  go  on  deck  and  stand 
your  watch." 

"  I  thank  you  for  the  promotion,  but  do  not  want 
it.  I  dislike  responsibility.  I  hold  a  master's  ticket, 
as  you  know,  and  I  tried  using  it  once  for  six  months, 
but  never  no  more.  It's  second  mate  for  me  to  the 
end  of  my  days  at  sea,  and  I'm  not  going  to  be  hustled 
into  anything  bigger." 

"  If  you  don't  go  on  deck,"  the  little  sailor  snarled 
at  him,  "  I'll  kick  you  there.  And  if  you  don't  do 
duty  when  you  are  on  deck,  I'll  disrate  you,  and  send 
you  below  to  trim  coals,  and  promote  one  of  the  ash 


270     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

cats  to  be  mate  in  your  place.  Now,  will  you 
budge?" 

"  I  suppose  I  have  to,  if  you  put  it  that  way.  But 
I  — "  mumble,  mumble,  mumble. 

He  hoisted  his  fat  hairy  legs  over  the  edge  of  the 
bunk  and  dropped  on  deck;  slowly  he  found  slippers, 
an  ulster  and  a  uniform  cap,  and  went  out  of  his  room 
still  grumbling.  Captain  Kettle,  with  twitching 
fingers,  followed  at  his  heels. 

"  You  will  set  an  anchor  watch  of  six  hands,  and 
have  them  report  to  you  every  half -bell." 

"  Aye." 

"  Let  the  rest  of  the  hands  turn  in.  I  shall  want 
them  early." 

"  Aye,  aye." 

"  Take  accurate  bearings  of  any  lights  you  may  see 
ashore.     Is  your  log  written  up?" 

"  Not  up  to  date.     There  might  be  — " 

"  Bring  it  to  me  after  breakfast  to-morrow,  filled 
up  to  breakfast  time.     And  Mr.  Forster?  " 

"Aye?" 

"  If  I  hear  of  or  see  any  shore  flare  that  you  don't 
report  accurately,  I'll  send  you  to  your  room,  and  see 
that  your  ticket's  indorsed  for  incompetency.  That'll 
do." 

"Appear  to  be  enjoying  yourself,"  said  McTodd, 
when  a  very  worried  Kettle  let  himself  into  the  chart 
house. 

"  You  see  the  hopeless  material  I  have  to  work 
on. 


VIOLET  FORCES  THE  PACE  271 

"  It's  only  the  fools  that  come  to  sea,"  said  the  Scot 
sententiously.  "  You  and  me  are  the  exceptions. 
There  was  a  letter  in  my  room  put  in  the  tumbler  rack 
with  a  whisky  bottle  as  paper  weight.  I  wonder 
why?" 

"  To  insure  its  being  seen.  How  was  it  ad- 
dressed? " 

"  To  you.  It's  there,  under  the  parallel  rulers  on 
the  chart  table.  And  I've  brought  you  a  tot  of  the 
whisky." 

Captain  Kettle  tore  and  read: 

"  My  Dear  Skipper : 

There's  a  devil  of  a  mess.  My  sister,  who  you'll 
know  by  this  time,  is  quite  unaccountable  to  any- 
body for  her  movements,  took  it  into  her  head  as  soon 
as  you  had  left  the  ship  to  go  ashore  with  old  Mrs. 
Bergash  and  her  retinue.  They've  got  the  stewardess 
with  them.  I  did  not  know  what  had  happened  till 
I,  by  accident,  came  on  deck  and  saw  them  riding  off 
on  camels  up  over  the  sand-dunes  at  the  back  of  the 
beach,  and  presumably  making  for  the  mountains. 
They'd  got  the  bodyguard  in  attendance,  and  the  camp 
followers  were  striking  camp  for  all  they  were  worth. 
The  saint  saw  what  had  happened  the  same  time  I  did, 
and  to  give  him  his  due,  seemed  considerably  rattled. 
It  was,  according  to  him,  kismet,  and  all  the  rest  of 
it;  but  he  obviously  didn't  like  the  look  of  things  one 
little  bit.  He  said  I  must  remember  that  the  customs 
and  appliances  in  his  fortress  were  much  the  same  as 


272     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

they  had  been  in  the  days  of  Ancient  Rome,  and  my 
sister  would  find  them  abominably  crude  and  savage. 
The  one  thing  to  do  (by  his  way  of  thinking)  is  to 
head  her  off.  So  we're  just  starting  for  the  shore 
for  that  purpose.  There  are  horses  still  at  their 
pickets.  Rely  on  it  we  shall  get  back  as  soon  as  we 
can." 

"  Yes,  I  guarantee  they  will.  My  James,  what  a 
mess !  I  knew  there  was  something  hanging  over  us, 
and  that's  what  it  is." 

"  There's  another  word  or  two  of  the  letter." 

"  Oh,  yes.     He  says : 

"  I  hope  you  found  all  well  on  the  Norman  Tozuers. 
If  there's  any  hitch,  I'm  sure  you  will  find' the  saint 
is  only  too  anxious  to  assist.     So  please  treat  him 
with  decent  civility  when  next  you  meet. 
"  Yours, 

"  G.  C.  H.  C.  Chesterman." 

**  I  shall  treat  that  wrongly-educated  African  ex- 
actly as  he  deserves  when  I  catch  him.     Mac?  " 

*'  I'm  listening." 

"  I'm  going  ashore  —  now.  I  shall  take  a  rifle  and 
a  bag  of  biscuit,  and  a  bottle  of  Horner's  Perfect  Cure, 
and  follow  on  the  trail  of  that  caravan,  and  see  what 
happens.  If  I  am  wanted,  I  shall  be  there.  If  the 
unlikely  happens,  and  all  goes  well,  I'll  be  free  to  let 
any  one  who  feels  inclined  that  way,  kick  me  —  if  he 


VIOLET  FORCES  THE  PACE  273 

can.  I  leave  you  in  charge  here,  not  because  you're 
certificated,  not  because  you're  competent,  but  because 
you're  the  best  man  out  of  the  bad  lot  on  board." 

"  Man,  your  compliments  overwhelm  me." 

"  As  a  favor  I  ask  you  to  give  the  whisky  a  miss, 
and  keep  your  end  up." 

"  Drunk  or  sober  I  can  do  that  last  with  the  crowd 
on  board  here.  But  being  now  in  a  position  of  vast 
responsibility,  I  want  all  points  made  clear  to  me  in 
case  I  have  to  make  a  choice.  If  it's  a  case  of  losing 
you  or  losing  the  owner,  which  do  I  take  ?  " 

'*  Help  the  owner,  by  James,  every  time,  because 
he  is  the  owner.  And  anyway,  I  can  look  after  my- 
self." 

"Does  that  include  his  sister?" 

"  I  guess  they'll  have  to  come  level." 

"  And  the  other  girrl  ?  There  could  be  no  call  to 
give  special  attention  to  a  mere  leddy's  maid,  espe- 
cially when  the  skipper  is  sweet  on  the  mistress." 

"  Mac,"  said  Captain  Kettle,  quietly  for  him,  "  I've 
got  about  as  much  as  I  can  carry.  What  that  no- 
color  beast  of  a  saint  may  be  up  to  I  shiver  to  think 
of.  But  make  no  doubt  about  my  own  sentiments 
toward  the  two  ladies.  Miss  Chesterman  is  one  of 
the  owners  and  has  my  fullest  respect.  Miss  Dubbs, 
if  God  is  very  good  to  me,  I  want  some  day  again  to 
make  my  sweetheart." 

"  Aye,  being  a  pairson  of  penetration  mysel',  that's 
been  clear  to  me  for  some  time.  But  I  hae  my  doobts 
if  it's  been  as  clear  to  the  other  parties  concerned  in 


274     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

the  business  as  principals.  As  to  your  going  alone 
into  those  mountains  on  their  trail,  it  strikes  me  as 
the  worst  kind  of  foolishness,  and  the  very  thing  that 
blackguard  of  a  saint  is  probably  looking  out  for; 
but  I  ken  fine  ye're  too  mule-heided  to  be  turned  from 
your  plan,  so  I'll  e'en  spare  ma  eloquence.  I'll  just 
pack  my  own  side-arms  and  come  with  you." 

"  Mr.  McTodd,"  said  Kettle  stiffly,  *'  I've  admitted 
you  to  some  familiarities,  and  now  you're  inclined 
to  encroach.  Kindly  note,  I'm  master  on  this  packet. 
I  leave  you  on  board  here,  as  I  say,  in  charge,  and  if 
you  fail  to  keep  a  sharp  lookout  night  and  day,  the 
Moors  will  take  her  from  you  as  sure  as  the  Lord 
made  little  apples.  I  shall  be  away  for  the  shore  my- 
self in  ten  minutes." 


CHAPTER  XX 

IN   THE   ATLAS   FOOT-HILLS 

'nr^HE  shifts  and  strategies  by  vvhicli  Captain  Owen 
■*•  Kettle  made  his  way  from  the  shore  of  the 
lagoon  to  the  foot  of  the  rock  on  which  the  castle  of 
Sidi  Mahommed  Bergash  is  perched  would,  if  they 
could  be  got  hold  of,  make  a  book  of  themselves. 

But,  unfortunately,  almost  the  whole  of  that  piece 
of  history  depends  on  the  account  given  to  me  by 
Kettle  himself,  and  he  has  always  more  of  an  eye  for 
results  than  for  the  details  by  which  they  were  built  up. 

In  speaking  of  the  period  he  could  not  rise  much 
higher  than,  "  Oh,  yes,  I  had  a  pretty  tough  tramp  of 
it,"  or  "  Those  argan  thorns  play  James  with  a  uni- 
form," or  again,  "  Worst  thing  was,  I  had  forgotten 
to  take  along  a  cake  of  soap,  and  couldn't  wash  my 
hands." 

But,  as  I  hinted,  it  has  been  possible  to  pick  up  bits 
of  the  thread  of  his  adventures  here  and  there  from 
other  sources,  and  with  these  to  construct  a  tolerably 
coherent  whole. 

When  once  the  boat  had  set  him  down  on  the 
beach,  he  worked  his  way  resolutely  along  to  the  point 
where  the  caravan  with  the  women  had  first  debouched 
from  the  sand-hills,  guided  only  by  his  sailor's  eye  for 

275 


276     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

distance  and  direction.  The  night  was  still  black 
dark,  but  the  rib-band  of  phosphorescence  which 
marked  the  edge  of  the  lagoon  gave  him  a  clear  out- 
line of  the  shore. 

By  the  time  he  got  down  to  the  point  opposite  the 
rusted  Norman  Towers  where  the  track  turned  in- 
land, a  scared  moon  appeared  overhead,  dodging  in 
and  out  of  racing  clouds.  Dunes  lay  beyond  the 
beach,  some  of  bald  yellow  sand,  some  bristling  with 
a  dry  coarse  grass.  From  among  them  somewhere 
a  wandering  jackal  complained  (when  the  moon  shone 
out)  of  pains  in  his  insidCj^'and  was  answered  by  a 
tribal  sympathizer  away  up  in  the  mountains  beyond. 

At  the  back  of  the  dunes  came  a  belt  of  marsh, 
smelling  evilly  of  sulphur  and  stale  sea  salt,  and  flick- 
ered over  by  fireflies.  Captain  Kettle  mired  himself 
badly  in  this,  and  being  always  a  spruce  man  in  his 
personal  appearance,  cursed  his  luck  with  point  and 
fluency.  Not  till  he  was  half-way  through  did  doubts 
as  to  direction  assail  him.  The  marsh  had  obviously 
been  paddled  over  by  countless  footmen.  Would  it 
carry  a  camel  ?  "  Not  unless  they  took  along  a 
steam-crane  with  them  in  case  of  breakdowns,"  he 
told  him.self. 

So,  with  still  more  hard  language,  he  went  back- 
ward over  the  trail,  and  on  the  edge  of  the  marsh 
found  (as  he  suspected)  that  the  horsehoofs  and  the 
camel-pads  had  swung  off  at  right  angles  to  the  main 
trail,  and  that  the  road  that  interested  him  bore  away 
to  the  north  and  east.     It  was  his  first  attempt  at 


IN  THE  ATLAS  FOOT-HILLS  277 

tracking,  and  though  in  after  Hfe  he  came  to  be 
almost  as  good  at  picking  up  "  sign  "  as  an  i\.ustraHan 
black,  it  must  be  remembered  that  I  am  writing  now 
of  his  apprentice  days  in  the  art  of  adventure,  and 
can  only  depict  him  as  the  imperfect  practitioner  that 
he  then  was. 

It  was  round  at  the  back  of  this  salt  marsh  that  he 
came  across  those  argan-trees,  about  whose  sharp 
bayonet-shaped  spikes  he  spoke  so  feelingly,  and  here 
for  a  while  discovery  of  the  path  was  fairly  simple. 
It  twisted  and  it  wound,  often  curving  back  almost 
on  itself.  It  seemed  to  delight  in  going  as  much  up- 
hill and  downhill  as  the  contours  of  the  country  would 
permit.  It  was  narrow,  and  it  was  cluttered  with 
boulders;  and,  as  is  the  unvarying  habit  of  the  native 
African  road,  it  had  faults  enough  to  make  the  shade 
of  the  late  John  Macadam  writhe  if  it  ever  blew  that 
way,  and  saw  how  the  name  of  road  could  be  dis- 
graced. 

Once  a  sudden  rustle,  and  a  rattle  as  of  sticks  clear- 
ing for  action,  put  the  little  sailor  on  the  hasty  de- 
fense, and  Winchester  in  hand,  he  rushed  fiercely  for- 
ward, on  the  old  but  erroneous  principle  that  it  is 
always  safer  to  attack  than  to  defend.  A  cloud  slid- 
ing away  from  the  moon,  however,  showed  him  that 
the  path  was  held  by  nothing  more  formidable  than 
a  big  porcupine  that  he  had  disturbed  at  its  evening 
meal.  The  beast  was  a  mass  of  angry  bristling  quills, 
and  in  another  step  Captain  Kettle  would  have  stum- 
bled on  them  and  been  badly  pricked.     But  as  it  was, 


278     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

and  the  creature  showed  no  sign  of  budging,  he  gave 
it  right  of  way,  and  passed  round  it  in  a  generous 
circuit. 

Another  time  a  sounder  of  wild  pig  crossed  the 
path,  and  the  boar  in  charge,  a  huge  bristHng  tusker 
of  the  narrow  variety,  a  good  four  feet  high  at  the 
withers,  scented  man,  and  had  three-quarters  of  a 
mind  to  charge  and  rip.  The  trifling  detail  that  Ket- 
tle had  him  covered  with  a  steady  rifle  barrel  did  not 
enter  into  his  majesty's  calculations.  He  had  not 
seen  a  rifle  before;  and  even  if  he  had  known  it  in- 
timately, that  would  not  have  made  the  smallest  differ- 
ence to  his  piggish  mind  if  he  had  felt  in  the  mood  for 
a  charge.  But  some  matter  of  domestic  interest 
flitted  across  his  slow-moving  brain,  and  with  a  grunt, 
and  a  whetting  of  his  tushes  on  an  argan  trunk  as  he 
passed,  he  lumbered  on  into  the  bush  after  his  wives 
and  their  piglings. 

With  the  coming  of  morn,  the  birds  began  to  awake. 
When  the  sun  commenced  to  rise  from  beyond  Africa, 
there  in  the  higher  flats  of  the  atmosphere  which  were 
first  to  be  lighted,  swam  an  eagle  of  the  Atlas  and  a 
couple  of  carrion  fowl,  already  on  station;  the  par- 
tridge and  quail  began  to  scutter  across  the  path  in  an- 
other hard  day's  search  for  food;  and  when  day  was 
fairly  alight,  great  flocks  of  blue  rock  pigeons  from 
the  higher  Atlas  crags  flew  swooping  down,  one  flock 
after  another,  to  drink  in  some  unseen  wady.  A 
couple  of  aoudad  —  mouflon  they  call  them  elsewhere 
—  the  primeval  sheep,  to  be  more  simple  —  surprised 


IN  THE  ATLAS  FOOT-HILLS  279 

by  the  dawn,  galloped  past,  making  for  the  security 
of  those  high  inaccessible  crags  which  have  kept  them 
from  man's  extinguishing  weapons  down  through  so 
many  countless  centuries. 

"The  daily  miracle  of  the  dawn" — the  line  ran 
through  Captain  Kettle's  head,  and  he  struggled  hard 
to  find  rhymes  to  match  it,  and  other  lines  to  carry 
on  what  he  had  seen.  He  was  in  as  desperate  a  situa- 
tion as  a  man  well  could  be;  all  the  country,  he  knew 
full  well,  was  against  him,  and  the  custom  was  to  cut 
a  throat  first,  and  to  inquire  into  motives  afterward; 
but  somehow  or  other,  a  tight  place  like  this  always 
seemed  to  make  him  quaintly  happy,  and  to  bring  up 
within  him  that  appetite  for  the  making  of  verse 
which  grew  so  largely  to  be  a  habit  with  him  through- 
out all  his  stormy  career. 

He  had  walked  all  night;  he  was  bone-weary;  the 
dew  chilled  him,  and  by  the  thorns  of  the  argans  he 
had  been  cruelly  torn ;  but  his  spirit  was  bright  within 
him,  and  although  through  sheer  exhaustion  he  was 
at  length  driven  to  pull  off  the  path,  and  rest  under  the 
shade  of  a  magnolia,  it  was  only  his  limbs  that  found 
repose.  The  scent  of  the  pink  waxen  blossoms  above 
him,  the  smell  of  the  clean  earth,  the  sounds,  the  col- 
ors, the  noises  of  the  birds  filled  him  with  an  ecstacy 
that  with  him  had  only  one  mode  of  expression.  He 
drew  from  his  pocket  paper,  an  end  of  pencil,  and  the 
stanzas  rolled  out  with  curious  ease. 

It  was  wonderful  poetry. 


28o     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

The  two  Moors  stalked  him  while  he  was  engaged 
in  this  occupation,  and  they  neared  him  so  success- 
fully that  they  did  not  consider  him  worth  wasting  a 
charge  of  powder  and  shot  on.  Powder  is  an  ex- 
pensive item  on  the  southern  flats  of  the  Atlas,  and  a 
gas-pipe  gun  only  stands  a  limited  number  of  dis- 
charges before  it  bursts,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  fact 
that  the  pretty  village  in  Norfolk,  where  the  fragile 
flints  are  made,  supplies  only  one  per  gun,  as  there  is 
never  a  demand  for  a  second.  The  hooked  dagger, 
on  the  other  hand,  which  is  so  effective  for  the  up- 
ward jab,  suffers  no  deterioration  from  a  little  honest 
work,  and  lasts  the  lifetime  of  two  ordinary  fighting 
men. 

By  way  of  doing  the  thing  artistically,  and  not  get- 
ting in  one  another's  way,  the  pair  separated  a  dozen 
yards  away  from  their  game,  and  worked  out,  one 
on  either  flank.  The  word  for  "  Go !  "  was  "  Allah !  " 
and  when  one  shouted  it  and  jumped,  the  other 
jumped  also  from  the  other  side. 

But  Captain  Kettle  had  the  activity  of  the  sleeping 
dog  approached  by  the  sudden  cart  wheel.  Even 
while  the  knives  stabbed  through  the  air,  he  sprang 
out  backward  from  where  he  was  squatting  and 
landed  on  heels  and  wrists.  Practically  the  same  in- 
stant he  was  erect  on  his  feet,  and  springing  forward 
again  with  all  his  force.  His  fist  shot  out  before 
him,  and,  with  every  ounce  of  his  weight  driving  it 
behind,  impacted  just  below  the  corner  of  the  right 
hand  Moor's  mouth.     The  man's  jaw  broke  in  two 


IN  THE  ATLAS  FOOT-HILLS  281 

places,  and  he  dropped  instantly  as  if  he  had  been 
poleaxed. 

Number  two  Moor  again  aimed  a  savage  upward 
slash,  which  was  near  enough  to  slit  the  front  of  the 
sailor's  coat;  but  the  worst  of  that  cut  is,  that  though 
hard  to  parry,  it  leaves  the  performer  at  a  disadvan- 
tage if  the  stroke  misses.  Kettle  caught  the  brown 
wrist  on  its  upward  swing,  and  swirled  it  on  upward 
and  backward,  and  the  victim  screamed  as  the  arm 
jerked  out  of  its  socket  and  tore  the  ligaments. 

**  And  that's  stopped  your  piano  playing  for  a  week 
or  two,"  said  Captain  Kettle.  "  Now  stand  exactly 
still  in  your  tracks.  By  James,  I  wish  I'd  been  able 
to  get  at  a  gun  quick  enough  and  shot  the  pair  of  you. 
You'll  be  up  to  mischief  if  I  leave  you  alone  here  for 
ten  minutes.     Well,  you  must  be  attended  to  further." 

He  hauled  off  the  man's  jellab,  and  tore  from  it 
half  a  dozen  strips  which  he  knotted  together. 

"  Hold  your  sound  arm  against  that  branch,"  he 
commanded.  "  Up  —  up,  you  swine.  Now  keep  it 
there." 

He  jumped  into  the  magnolia  tree,  made  fast  the 
end  of  the  line  to  the  man's  wrist,  and  drew  him  a 
fathom  out  from  the  trunk.  The  branch  was  a  stout 
one  and  would  not  bend  under  two  men's  weight,  and 
Kettle  lashed  the  Moor's  wrist  to  it  with  a  seaman's 
skill,  and  then  dropped  lightly  to  the  ground. 

"  As  you  can't  lift  your  other  arm  to  cast  that 
adrift,  you'll  have  to  stay  there  till  called  for.  I 
expect  you'll  stand  at  some  considerable  personal  in- 


282     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

convenience,  but  that'll  give  you  time  to  ruminate  over 
your  bad  taste  in  tr>'ing  to  assassinate  an  innocent 
tourist.  And  now,  as  your  fellow  cutthroat  mayn't 
have  been  put  as  soundly  to  sleep  as  appearances  seem 
to  indicate,  I'll  attend  to  him  also." 

He  dragged  the  other  Moor  to  the  foot  of  a  big 
Cottonwood,  thought  for  a  minute,  and  then  eased 
him  of  his  jellab,  dagger,  powder-horn,  and  head- 
gear. Then  he  sat  him  down  face  to  the  tree  with 
his  legs  straddled  round  the  roots,  and  making  fast 
one  end  of  a  jellab  rope  to  one  wrist,  hauled  up  the 
other  to  it  as  close  as  it  would  draw,  and  made  fast 
again,  so  that  the  man  sat  nuzzling  and  cuddling  the 
tree  and  perfectly  impotent  to  release  himself. 

"  You  also,"  Captain  Kettle  announced,  "  have  my 
free  permission  to  meditate  on  the  evilness  of  your 
deeds  until  I  return  to  interrupt  the  chain  of  thought. 
Now  I  wonder  how  I  am  going  to  dress." 

The  ropes  of  twisted  white  woolen  fabric  which  the 
lower  class  Moors  (and  their  neighbors  the  Berbers)' 
wear  wound  in  coils  round  the  head  are  insecure  even 
on  themselves,  and  the  present  writer  can  testify  it 
to  be  the  most  exasperating  wear  for  the  ordinary 
white  man.  Either  it  is  too  tight,  in  which  case  the 
skull,  baked  by  a  vertical  sun,  seems  visibly  to  swell; 
or  it  is  too  loose,  and  its  snaky  coils  begin  to  slip 
adrift  almost  from  the  first  moment  of  their  readjust- 
ment. 

Captain  Kettle  took  off  his  coat  and  put  on  the 
jellab.     The  Moor  does  not  wear  trousers,  or  for  that 


IN  THE  ATLAS  FOOT-HILLS  283 

matter  American  boots,  but  the  jellab  was  long  and 
covered  these,  and  the  little  sailor  decided  that  he 
would  feel  lonely  without  them.  Then  came  the  turn 
for  the  elaborate  head-gear. 

He  examined  with  care  that  of  the  Moor  who  was 
triced  up  to  the  branch  of  the  magnolia,  and  proceeded 
to  imitate  its  adjustment.  Being  a  sailor,  and  there- 
fore an  expert  in  the  handling  of  ropes,  he  made  a 
far  better  attempt  at  it  than  might  have  been  expected, 
but  the  end  slipped  before  he  had  gone  a  mile  on  his 
way,  and  between  slipping  and  readjustment  was  a 
constant  torment  to  him. 

But  it  is  characteristic  of  the  man  that  throughout 
all  the  stormy  time  that  followed  he  stuck  to  it  pa- 
tiently till  he  mastered  the  trick.  He  refused  to  ad- 
mit that  an  inferior  race  had  skill  which  he  could  not 
acquire,  and  he  refused  also  to  appear  abroad,  even 
in  the  wilds  of  the  Atlas  foot-hills,  otherwise  than  im- 
maculately neat. 

There  were  pockets  inside  the  jellab,  and  for  a 
while  he  stored  uniform  jacket  and  cap  in  these.  But 
as  the  desperate  nature  of  his  errand  was  more  and 
more  borne  in  on  him  as  he  climbed  the  steep  paths 
and  got  farther  and  farther  into  the  mountains,  he 
recognized  that  he  would  need  every  ounce  of  his  wiry 
strength  if  he  was  to  win  out  in  his  enterprise. 

It  was  not  doing  his  duty  to  his  owners  to  handicap 
himself  even  with  the  extra  weight  of  a  coat  and  cap 
of  British  cut,  and  so  with  a  sigh  at  parting  with 
them,  he  stepped  aside  into  the  bush  (when  he  came 


284     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

on  marks  that  he  could  remember)  and  hid  them 
under  a  convenient  slab  of  limestone. 

But  it  presently  began  to  appear  that  Sidi  Ma- 
hommed  Bergash  had  not  spent  time  on  the  Wangaroo 
without  forming  a  pretty  shrewd  estimate  of  her  cap- 
tain's capabilities.  Captain  Kettle  walked  briskly  up 
to  the  top  of  a  rise,  looked  down  into  the  valley  which 
lay  between  it  and  the  next  spur  of  the  mountains 
and  lo,  scattered  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach  each 
way  were  men  in  ones,  in  twos,  and  here  and  there  in 
groups  of  five  or  six,  guarding  the  marches. 

The  little  sailor  dropped  neatly  into  cover  and 
pulled  vexedly  at  his  red  torpedo  beard.  His  squat 
shadow  sat  promptly  and  compactly  beneath  him. 
The  sun  was  high  overhead  and  the  day  was  blazing 
hot,  and  on  some  such  baking  day  as  this  fire  had 
cleared  the  hillside  below  him.  Even  as  he  sat  there 
and  watched,  a  flaw  of  wind  stirred  up  the  charcoal 
dust  and  sent  a  small  cloud  of  it  whirling  round  his 
roped  head. 

"  It  would  take  me  an  hour,"  he  calculated,  "  to  get 
down  to  that  line  of  men,  and  in  the  meanwhile  they'd 
see  me  before  I'd  stepped  out  a  dozen  yards  from  this 
ridge,  and  would  close  up  ready  to  say  how-d'ye-do 
all  together.  My  holy  James,  but  that  saint  means 
business.  That's  a  whole  army  he's  got  spread  out 
down  there.  It's  going  to  take  me  longer  to  arrive 
at  the  beggar's  door  than  I'd  reckoned  on.  Well, 
one  thing's  certain  —  I  can't  go  full  steam  ahead  till 
the  sun's  switched  off  again,  and  so  I  guess  it'll  be  a 


IN  THE  ATLAS  FOOT-HILLS  2S5 

sound  thing  to  take  a  watch  below  while  there's  a 
chance." 

He  turned  at  right  angles  under  the  shelter  of  the 
ridge,  and  presently  came  across  an  overhanging  flap 
of  limestone,  with  its  front  marked  by  bush,  which 
gave  both  an  efficient  cover  from  the  sun,  and  a  shield 
against  the  inspection  of  casual  wayfarers,  and  under 
this  he  stretched  himself  luxuriously,  wriggling  his 
body  down  into  the  inequalities  of  the  warm  rock. 

"  I  once  heard  a  fellow  say,"  he  reminded  himself 
drowsily,  "  that  he  could  sleep  upon  everything  ex- 
cept a  stone  floor  or  concrete.  Well,  that  man  didn't 
know  the  luxury  of  being  tired.  And  he  didn't  know, 
either  the  wisdom  of  storing  up  a  good  reserve  stock 
of  sleep  when  you  get  the  chance.  ...  I  took 
darn  good  care  not  to  leave  boot  tracks  on  those  rocks. 
.  .  .  And  if  they  don't  hunt  me  out  with  smell- 
dogs,  I'm  safe.  .  .  .  Miss  Dubbs,  my  dearest, 
this  isn't  idleness.  It  means  that  I'm  at  the  end  of 
my  string.  .  .  .  But  don't  you  fret.  I'll  get  you 
out.  .  .  .  and  of  course,  the  owners,  too  .  ..  « 
if  I  have  to  spoil  half  Africa  in  the  process." 

For  the  benefit  of  any  reader  of  this  chronicle  who 
does  not  know  the  upper  slopes  of  the  Atlas,  it  may 
here  be  pointed  out  that  the  climate  one  finds  up  there 
is  very  different  from  the  hot  baking  airs  of  the  coast 
fringe. 

In  the  length  of  the  Atlas  which  lies  between  the 
Atlantic  shore  and  the  Algerian  border  it  is  quite  pos- 


286     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

sible  there  may  be  glaciers  and  perpetual  ice-fields. 
No  white  man  has  explored  them  —  or,  to  be  more 
precise,  no  white  man  who  has  gone  into  that  upper 
country  has  ever  returned  to  report  his  observations, 
and  the  Berber  who  lives  in  the  neighborhood,  and  pre- 
sumably knows,  is  a  reticent  creature  and  will  not  tell. 
The  present  writer,  who  records  only  what  he  has 
seen,  has  felt  the  sun  up  there  drilling  through  his 
head-gear  at  midday,  and  has  at  that  time  stood  in  the 
middle  of  his  own  small  circular  shadow.  And  yet 
on  the  same  spot,  and  only  twelve  hours  later,  the 
whole  camp  has  been  whitened  by  steadily  falling 
snow,  and  the  chill  of  it  was  paralyzing.  As  all  the 
world  knows,  there  is  nothing  so  bitter  as  snow  in 
the  tropics.  The  temperature,  as  temperatures  go, 
may  not  be  anything  remarkable,  but  in  these  things 
it  is  contrast  that  nips. 

Captain  Kettle  slept  throughout  the  baking  day  the 
sleep  of  utter  weariness,  without  dream,  without  stir. 
Insects  hummed  and  pinged  above  him,  and  some  of 
them  browsed  on  him  tmdisturbed. 

An  investigating  jackal  got  wind  of  him  about  sup- 
per-time, and  trotted  a  mile  grinning  at  the  thought 
of  a  meal.  But  he  turned  tail  after  a  brief  inspec- 
tion, and  left  a  bad  smell  behind  him  to  mark  his  dis- 
pleasure. The  pioneers  of  an  adjacent  colony  of  ants, 
too,  came  and  marched  over  him ;  but  discovering  that 
he  was  still  alive,  retired  with  a  resolve  to  call  later 
on. 

It  was  the  chill  that  woke  him. 


IN  THE  ATLAS  FOOT-HILLS  287 

He  was  stiff  from  head  to  foot,  his  bones  ached, 
and  his  skin  prinkled,  this  being  the  ordinary  way 
that  frost  affects  one  in  the  tropics.  But  the  sea  Hfe 
raises  one  above  grumbhng  at  trifles  Hke  these.  He 
looked  at  his  watch,  frowned  at  the  moon,  shook  him- 
self warm,  and  set  out.  He  had  all  his  plan  of  cam- 
paign mapped  out,  and  after  a  brief  reconnaissance, 
to  make  sure  that  the  disposition  of  the  enemy  re- 
mained unchanged,  he  commenced  the  action. 

He  chose  one  of  the  larger  pickets  in  the  valley 
below,  where  the  white-clothed  men  lay  in  starfish 
pattern,  with  their  feet  pointing  toward  a  central 
camp  fire,  and  shouldering  the  Winchester,  com- 
menced a  steady  bombardment  at  the  blaze.  He  fired 
no  two  bullets  from  the  same  spot,  but  after  letting 
off  one  cartridge,  ran  swiftly  for  ten  yards  along  the 
ridge  before  discharging  the  next.  After  the  first  few 
shots  he  was  indifferent  about  inaccurate  aim.  The 
Berbers  had  scattered  from  the  fire  when  the  first 
bullet  hit  a  log,  and  sent  up  a  rocket  of  sparks,  and 
had  rolled  off,  like  the  experts  they  were  at  the  snip- 
ing game,  into  cover;  and  after  that  a  bullet  at  ran- 
dom was  as  good,  or  as  harmless,  as  a  bullet  aimed. 

Captain  Kettle's  ruse  de  guerre  was  to  make  the 
enemy  think  that  they  were  attacked  by  a  consider- 
able number  of  riflemen  strung  out  along  the  ridge, 
who  had  an  order  for  individual  fire;  and  in  this  he 
succeeded  very  pleasantly.  Kettle  splashed  in  twenty 
shots  from  a  front  of  two  hundred  yards,  and  then 
there  was  a  cessation  of  firing  as  he  sprinted  back  to 


288     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

his  starting-point.  To  the  Berber  this  represented  the 
interval  necessary  to  reload  and  reprime  a  muzzle- 
loading,  flint-locked  musket.  He  repeated  the  dose 
over  the  same  two  hundred  yards  of  front,  and  con- 
vinced them  that  they  were  attacked  by  twenty  men. 
Well,  they  were  two  hundred.  The  strung-out  sen- 
tries and  supports  had  run  in  by  this,  and  the  whole 
crew  of  them  were  packed  together  in  the  bush. 
They  were  sons  of  Islam  all,  and  a  frontal  attack  ap- 
pealed to  them  as  one  of  the  surest  short  cuts  to 
Paradise  for  the  lucky  ones. 

So  word  was  passed  with  a  shout  of  "Allah!" 
They  broke  cover,  all  two  hundred  of  them,  and 
charged  up  over  the  burnt  hillside. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

A  LITTLE  BERBER   SPORT 

44TF  I  go  on  much  more  with  this  sort  of  game," 

-■"  Captain  Kettle  panted  to  himself,  "  my  boilers 
will  need  re-tubing.  I  never  knew  how  near  a  man 
could  get  to  being  burst  by  running  uphill  in  these 
high  altitudes." 

He  squatted  behind  a  boulder  at  the  head  of  the 
valley,  and  peered  over  it  down  the  bare  burnt  slopes. 
The  Berbers  had  carried  out  their  frontal  attack  like 
the  valiant  men  they  were,  and  had  scattered  at  the 
head  of  the  ridge,  and  were  hunting  for  the  men  who 
had  attacked  them,  and  who  had  so  mysteriously  dis- 
appeared. 

"HI  had  the  handling  of  you  swine,"  the  watcher 
mused,  "  I  could  make  you  into  good  troops.  You've 
pluck,  and  that's  a  fact,  but  I  think  your  heads  are 
stuffed  with  porridge  instead  of  brains.  Well,  I  hope 
you  find  plenty  to  amuse  yourselves  with  there  for 
the  next  few  hours.  I  shouldn't  wonder  but  what 
you  walk  into  a  wild  bee's  nest  if  you  rootle  among 
those  rocks  for  sufficiently  long.  But  as  you're  in- 
terested, I  guess  it  will  be  best  for  me  to  be  jogging." 

The  moon  kindly  slid  away  for  the  time  being  be- 
hind clouds,  and  so  Captain  Kettle  was  able  to  pursue 

289 


290     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

his  passage  across  the  head  of  the  valley  erect  and  in 
the  open.  The  journey  was  not  a  comfortable  one. 
An  icy  wind  roared  down  from  the  snow-clad  peaks 
of  the  Atlas  above,  and  whistled  shrewdly  through 
the  pores  of  his  loosely-woven  jellab,  and  though  the 
gloom  of  the  night  was  kind  enough  to  conceal  his 
whereabouts  from  an  active  enemy,  it  also  failed  to 
show  him  the  fissures  and  boulders  that  lay  in  his 
path;  and  as  a  consequence  he  stumbled  severely  and 
often. 

But  the  sailor  took  these  minor  troubles  philosoph- 
ically enough,  munched  a  biscuit  by  way  of  belated 
supper,  or  early  breakfast,  washed  it  down  with  a  nip 
of  Horner,  and  held  steadily  along  his  way.  From 
his  last  halt  he  had  mapped  the  contours  of  the  hills 
carefully  with  his  eye,  and  he  now  checked  his  course 
by  occasional  squints  at  a  pocket  compass,  the  card  of 
which  had  been  anointed  with  luminous  paint.  Auto- 
matically, too,  he  counted  his  footsteps  and  estimated 
the  distance  traveled. 

It  was  no  labor  to  him  to  do  this.  He  was  one  of 
those  rare  men  to  whom  map-making  comes  by  in- 
stinct. There  are  a  handful  of  them  in  the  navy, 
where  they  are  for  the  most  part  wasted ;  and  there 
are  said  to  be  three  in  the  British  army.  The  remain- 
ing half-dozen  for  the  most  part  survey  impossible 
places  in  the  Himalayas  where  nobody  wants  to  go, 
or  correct  portions  of  the  bad  official  map  of  the 
British  Isles,  and  send  the  results  to  publications  which 
nobody  reads. 


A  LITTLE  BERBER  SPORT  291 

The  spurs  of  the  Atlas,  at  this  part  —  i.  e,,  western 
end,  southern  flank  —  run  more  or  less  parallel  to  one 
another  in  a  north  and  south  direction. 

Li  their  lower  portions,  before  they  get  muddled  up 
in  the  foot-hills  that  border  on  the  Sahara  Plain,  they 
are  distinct  enough,  the  tops  of  the  ridges  being  sharp 
and  stony,  and  the  valleys  in  between  broad,  and  flat, 
and  fertile.  At  the  upper  end  they  run  into  the  gen- 
eral scheme  of  the  range,  which  is  chaotic,  and  of 
course  it  must  always  be  carried  in  mind  that  the 
whole  thing  is  done  on  an  enormous  scale. 

At  the  end  of  another  four  hours'  rapid  tramp,  and 
the  sailor  had  broken  into  a  trot  whenever  the  ground 
would  permit  the  pace,  he  came  to  another  divide,  and 
looked  over  into  what  was  obviously  the  valley  Bergash 
had  talked  about.  The  moon  had  retired  by  this,  but 
the  clouds  had  gone,  and  the  sky  was  lighted  by  the 
wonderful  African  stars,  and  earth  below  them  stood 
out  like  a  dark  photograph.  The  valley  was  not 
lovely;  agricultural  land  is  seldom  that;  but  it  caught 
the  eye  with  an  irresistible  fascination.  Here  was  the 
only  example  remaining  to-day  of  the  old  Roman  type 
of  cultivation  in  Africa. 

Irrigation  was  the  key-note  of  the  whole.  A  stream, 
coming  from  the  unknown  heights  of  the  Atlas  above, 
ran  down  the  valley's  center  like  a  backbone.  It  was 
raised  by  an  aqueduct  a  hundred  feet  at  an  average 
above  the  ground  level.  At  constant  intervals  were 
masonry  dams  to  catch  the  fertilizing  flood  water. 
Ribbed  across  the  aqueduct,  each  perhaps  half  a  mile 


292     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

below  the  one  above  it,  were  other  ducts  running  east 
and  west  from  which  the  water  was  distributed  in 
runlets  over  the  fields  as  it  was  required. 

Infinitely  simple  was  the  scheme;  intolerable  must 
have  been  the  amount  of  labor  required  to  pile  up  all 
those  enormous  masses  of  masonry.  One  can  imagine 
the  rage  of  mischievous  Moroccan  sultans  when  they 
tried  to  destroy  it  and  failed;  but  there  it  stood  (as 
it  stands  to-day)  as  perfect  as  when  it  was  built  in 
those  old  centuries  by  some  soldier  of  fortune  who 
had  learned  his  art  in  the  hard  school  of  imperial 
Rome. 

But  archaeology  was  not  a  thing  that  troubled  Cap- 
tain Kettle  at  that  (or  any  other)  period  of  his  career. 
He  viewed  the  valley  and  its  appurtenances  with  an 
inquiring  eye,  and  was  intent  only  on  discovering  a 
scheme  that  would  profit  his  owners  and  relieve  the 
present  necessities  of  Miss  Emily  Dubbs. 

The  night  was  dark,  and  even  the  blaze  of  African 
starlight  has  its  limit  in  illumination.  To  start  with, 
Kettle  saw  no  trace  of  the  saint's  fortress  which  he 
knew  ought  somewhere  to  overhang  the  valley.  From 
where  he  stood,  it  lay,  as  a  point  of  fact,  against  a 
black  background,  and  was  invisible  even  to  any  one 
who  knew  the  country-side. 

Even  when  he  descended  to  the  floor  of  the  valley, 
and  opened  out  the  rock  against  the  sky-line,  he  had 
walked  a  good  two  miles  among  the  corn-fields  and 
the  irrigating  channels  before  he  discovered  that  it 
was  anything  more  than  bare  rock  left  stranded  by 


A  LITTLE  BERBER  SPORT  293 

nature  when  the  great  bulk  of  the  Atlas  above  was 
upreared. 

The  two  highest  ambitions  of  that  old  Berber  mer- 
cenary who  had  engineered  it  were  that  the  place 
should  be  strong,  and  that  it  should  not  be  conspicu- 
ous, and  to  this  latter  end  he  had  dovetailed  his  build- 
ings into  the  rock  and  built  them  of  stones  hewn  from 
the  rock  itself. 

Captain  Kettle  walked  with  head  erect  and  ears 
cocked,  and  worked  his  way  down-valley  along  paths 
that  wound  between  the  high  stalks  of  the  corn.  The 
valley  was  filled  for  the  most  part  with  stillness,  but 
now  and  again  the  faint  sounds  of  moving  things 
met  his  ear,  and  as  he  walked  farther  down  these 
increased.  There  were  rustlings  and  there  were  rat- 
tlings  as  the  tall  stalks  of  the  corn  knocked  against 
one  another,  and  presently  there  was  an  unmistakable 
grunt. 

"  Ah,"  said  the  sailor,  "  a  wild  boar  having  its  sup- 
per," and  as  he  spoke  the  night  was  split  with  the 
bellow  of  a  gun,  and  the  valley  roared  with  its  echoes. 

Grunting  testified  a  hit,  but  from  other  parts  of 
the  crops  a  wild  stampede  bore  witness  that  the  pig 
was  there  in  goodly  number.  But,  so  presently,  it 
seemed,  were  the  Berbers.  Crash,  bang,  crash,  went 
the  black  powder  in  the  guns,  and  the  pebbles,  the 
leaden  slugs,  and  the  crude  iron  bullets  with  which 
they  were  loaded  whistled  and  sang  through  the  corn 
stalks. 

A  Berber  at  the  coolest  of  times  goes  on  the  easy 


294     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

principle  that  no  man  is  hit  unless  it  is  written  that 
he  should  be  hit,  and  so  he  is  always  a  dangerous 
shooting  companion.  But  when  good  lively  pig  are 
on  the  move  in  thick  cover,  then  the  Berber  is  a  per- 
son particularly  to  be  avoided.  He  shoots  with  en- 
thusiasm at  everything  that  moves  or  rustles,  and  so 
long  as  his  gun  does  not  burst,  he  is  apt  to  go  on  shoot- 
ing, once  he  is  warmed  up  to  it,  as  long  as  his  ammu- 
nition holds  out. 

"  By  James,"  snapped  Captain  Kettle  angrily,  "  if 
those  careless  scoundrels  don't  look  out  they'll  be  plas- 
tering me  next.  The  trouble  is  where  to  move  out  of 
their  way.     They're  shooting  all  round  the  compass." 

He  crossed  out  of  the  corn  patch  he  was  in  toward 
another  which  seemed  less  disturbed.  But  as  he 
stepped  out  into  the  path,  a  wild  boar  at  the  same 
instant  seized  the  opportunity  to  dart  across  it.  An 
unseen  sportsman  a  little  farther  off  was  on  the  watch 
and  pulled  a  prompt  trigger.  The  gun  blazed  and 
roared.  The  assorted  pellets  whistled  past  the  end  of 
the  pig's  tail,  and  drilled  holes  in  the  skirts  of  Captain 
Kettle's  jellab,  and  the  sailor  heard  the  plop  of  a 
cork  as  the  sportsman  opened  his  powder-horn  to 
pour  out  a  fresh  charge. 

The  Winchester  itched  in  Captain  Kettle's  hands, 
and  that  Berber  missed  Paradise  by  a  narrower 
margin  than  he  guessed.  But  in  a  flash  came  the  re- 
flection, "  He  doesn't  know  I'm  me.  He  thought  it 
was  one  of  his  own  pals  he  was  blazing  into,  and  if  I 
kick  against  the  custom  of  the  country  and  waste  time 


A  LITTLE  BERBER  SPORT  295 

with  a  side  scrap,  I  shall  be  neglecting  the  owners' 
work  Lm  paid  for,  and  neglecting  Miss  Dubbs.  I 
ought,"  he  told  himself  with  a  sigh,  "  to  be  kicked  for 
forgetting  those  things  even  for  a  moment." 

Once  again  the  stalks  of  the  corn  gave  him  harbor- 
age, and  three  times  more  those  devil-possessed  swine 
charged  in  his  direction  and  were  pursued  by  whistling 
showers  of  pot-leg.  But  the  luck  of  the  adventurous 
stood  by  him,  and  by  no  contrivance  of  his  own,  the 
little  sailor  came  through  the  metallic  showers  un- 
scathed. 

At  last  the  sportsmen  either  fired  away  all  their 
powder,  or  decided  that  the  pig  had  escaped,  and  in 
noisy  chattering  bands  went  away  homeward  down 
the  valley.  Captain  Kettle  followed  disgustedly  in 
their  wake.  "If  that's  sport  in  this  country,"  he  told 
himself,  "  I'd  prefer  good  plain  war.  It's  safer. 
Now  I  wonder  if  I  can  keep  along  at  the  heels  of  these 
ducks  till  they  get  close  up  home,  and  then  slip  in 
through  the  front  door  while  they  are  swapping  lies 
about  the  bag." 

But  as  they  went  on  down  the  valley,  and  the  great 
black  mass  of  the  fortress  rock  loomed  higher  and 
bigger  against  the  Milky  Way,  even  Captain  Kettle's 
brazen  self-assurance  began  to  be  streaked  with  hesi- 
tation. This  was  not  some  cluster  of  tumble-down 
huts  belonging  to  a  handful  of  robbers,  and  perched 
on  an  easy  crag  that  a  bird's-nesting  boy  could  scale. 
Dislike  for  Sidi  Mahommed  Bergash  had  made  him 
believe  that  the  man  bragged  when  he  told  about  his 


296     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

ancestral  stronghold,  and  here  when  it  came  to  the 
point,  the  fellow  had  told  a  good  deal  less  than  the 
truth. 

It  was  a  fortress  indeed,  and  measuring  thought- 
fully with  his  eye.  Kettle  reckoned  that  it  might  well 
be  packed  with  as  many  as  eight  or  ten  thousand  peo- 
ple. The  sailor  was  a  man  of  brazen  courage,  but  he 
w^as  no  madman;  he  had  ordinary  prudence;  and  he 
saw  that  to  march  into  this  great  hive  of  enemies 
would  end  his  usefulness.  This  must  be  a  case  for 
strategy,  and  for  the  present  he  must  keep  clear  of  the 
fortress  walls,  till  he  knew  more  about  the  lay  of  the 
land  and  its  possibilities. 

When  they  came  up  to  the  rock,  the  Berbers  bore 
off  to  the  right,  working  up  a  steep  rise  of  the  ground 
to  where  the  causeway  came  out  on  to  the  edge  of 
the  spur.  Kettle  left  them  when  they  turned,  and 
went  himself  to  the  left,  keeping  close  in  to  the  edge 
of  the  little  scree  of  fallen  fragments  that  fringed 
the  foot  of  the  rock,  and  craning  his  neck  backward 
so  as  to  take  in  every  foot  of  the  face. 

He  did  not  in  the  least  expect  to  find  a  row  of 
crevices  or  ledges  by  which  he  could  climb  to  the  top; 
by  this  time  he  was  very  thoroughly  impressed  by  the 
accuracy  with  which  the  saint  and  his  predecessors  in 
the  saintship  had  kept  up  their  defenses;  but  he  had, 
as  I  have  pointed  out  before,  a  very  clever  eye  for 
the  detail  of  a  country-side,  and  so  he  examined  it 
automatically  and  stored  up  mental  notes  of  what  he 
saw  without  effort. 


A  LITTLE  BERBER  SPORT  297 

In  this  manner,  then,  he  made  a  complete  circuit 
of  the  rock  as  far  as  the  other  side  of  the  entrance 
causeway,  and  so  far  noted  nothing  of  any  interest, 
and  having  also  found  no  hiding-place  for  himself, 
he  turned  back  again  to  make  a  fresh  examination, 
and  this  time  increased  his  speed. 

Time  was  getting  of  value;  dawn  impended;  and  if 
he  was  caught  in  the  open  when  day  dawned,  even 
though  hidden  among  the  corn,  he  would  be  within 
easy  range  of  any  inquiring  eye  that  looked  down 
from  the  fortress  above,  and  subsequently  a  simple 
target  for  the  crudest  marksman. 

Nowhere  could  he  have  picked  more  unpromising 
ground  for  finding  a  hiding-place  than  the  skirts  of 
this  great  island  of  stone.  The  rock  slabs  which 
formed  the  sides  either  by  nature  or  by  chiseling  were 
as  smooth  as  the  sides  of  a  house.  Nothing  but  a 
lizard  could  have  climbed  them,  and  they  would  not 
have  offered  cover  for  a  fly.  A  clump  of  red  valerian 
here  and  there,  or  a  tuft  of  purple  aubrieta  broke 
the  sameness  of  the  wall  at  rare  intervals ;  but  these 
offered  no  foothold,  and,  indeed,  only  tended  to  ac- 
centuate the  steepness  and  the  height  of  the  great  rock 
faces. 

An  owl  whizzed  in  from  the  valley,  swung  past 
Captain  Kettle's  head,  and  then  swooped  upward  and 
disappeared. 

"Got  a  nest  there,  that  fowl,"  he  thought.  "Or 
a  roosting-place.  There's  been  a  bit  of  a  fall  of  rock 
here;  the  outside's  shelled  off.     I  wonder — " 


298     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

He  ran  out  briskly  into  the  plain  and  stared  hard 
at  the  face  of  the  rock.  The  night  was  thinning. 
Already  the  east  was  gray.  Day  would  stare  at  him 
within  a  matter  of  minutes,  and  if  he  was  to  find 
cover,  it  must  be  before  day  showed  him  to  the  cu- 
rious. Yes,  in  the  edge  of  that  rockfall  there  was  a 
dark  patch  that  might  well  be  a  hollow.  There  was 
a  darker  stain  at  the  foot  of  it  that  merged  into 
green  below,  and  meant  a  trickle  of  wet. 

It  would  be  damp  and  uncomfortable  in  the  hollow 
even  if  he  could  get  into  it,  but  he  was  in  no  position 
just  then  to  pick  and  choose.  He  must  take  what 
offered,  and  if  it  turned  out  that  the  dark  patch  was 
merely  shadow  and  not  a  hole  at  all,  well,  there  was 
no  getting  over  the  fact  that  his  position  would  be 
desperate.  So  he  ran  in  once  more,  clambered  up 
over  the  tumbling  screes,  and  then  with  fingers 
and  toes  attacked  the  narrow  ledges  of  the  rock 
itself. 

He  told  me  afterward  it  was  the  first  piece  of 
rock  climbing  he  had  done  In  all  his  life,  and  from  the 
description  (and  he  was  never  the  man  to  exaggerate) 
it  must  have  been  no  kind  of  work  for  an  apprentice. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
he  had  learned  to  climb  on  a  sailing  ship,  and  later 
had  been  second  mate  on  a  full  rigger,  and  from  his 
official  position  had  been  expected  to  be  (and  was) 
the  most  reckless  and  skilful  climber  on  board. 

This  training,  one  may  gather,  saved  his  life  just 
then.     He   went   up,   he   crawled   sidewise,    he   went 


A  LITTLE  BERBER  SPORT  299 

down,  and  clambered  np  again  with  straining  finger- 
tips; and  finally  got  to  the  middle  of  a  fractureless 
slab  of  rock,  and  had  to  give  up  and  go  down  and  start 
afresh. 

He  prospected  more  diligently  this  time,  traced  a 
course,  plotted  it  in  his  head,  and  attacked  it  with  toes 
and  fingers.  This  time  he  had  more  success.  Day- 
light was  flogging  at  his  heels,  and  he  strove  upward 
with  every  muscle  and  nerve  in  his  body.  But  the 
way  was  almost  vertical  and  terribly  hard.  The 
jealous  inches  yielded  to  him  reluctantly.  The  owl, 
for  the  first  time  in  its  history,  scented  an  intruder, 
and  came  out  to  the  edge  of  its  hole  and  hooted 
derisively. 

Kettle  halted  ten  seconds  for  breath  and  nodded 
at  it  pleasantly.  "  I'll  tweak  your  tail  feathers  yet 
before  the  day  comes  up,"  he  gasped  — "  if  only  you'll 
wait  for  me."  And  then  up  he  dragged  himself  hand 
over  hand  for  six  feet  till  once  more  he  could  find 
lodgment  for  the  toes  of  his  boots.  And  then  came 
triumph.  He  put  out  a  hand  high  above  his  head  and 
got  it  in  a  firm  hold.  A  second  later  he  was  in  the 
place  where  his  hand  had  been,  and  the  owl,  com- 
plaining noisily,  flew  outward  past  his  ear. 

For  a  while  Captain  Kettle  lay  on  the  floor  of  the 
cleft,  getting  back  his  breath  in  labored  sobs.  The 
valley  below  him  was  eclipsed.  His  only  view  was 
of  snow-capped  peaks  at  a  far  distance,  rosy  now  with 
an  unseen  sunrise,  and  a  limitless  sky  spread  with  the 
palette  of  the  dawn.     He  looked  and  lusted.     "  By 


o 


oo     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 


James!"  he  muttered,  "if  only  I'd  time  to  get  you 
down  on  paper." 

But  he  was  never  a  man  to  allow  himself  the  lux- 
uries of  poetry  when  business  still  remained  to  be 
done.  The  cleft  ran  into  the  mountain;  a  stream 
tinkled  at  its  foot;  and  it  flashed  on  him  that  here 
was  a  place  to  ambush  the  Wangaroo's  men  if  so  be 
he  found  it  necessary  to  bring  a  squad  of  those  all- 
nation  ruffians  up  to  the  valley. 

All  evidences  showed  that  the  cleft  had  been  but 
newly  opened.  The  rock  slab  that  sealed  its  mouth 
had  shelled  away  and  tumbled  down  on  the  screes 
below  only  a  matter  of  weeks  before,  perhaps  days. 
And  the  enterprising  owl  which  had  taken  possession 
had  not  yet  had  time  to  build  more  than  the  rudi- 
ments of  a  nest,  much  less  lay  the  impending  tgg. 
The  main  question  was,  would  the  cleft  hold  enough 
men? 

The  hollow  in  which  he  lay  and  panted  would  har- 
bor half  a  dozen  at  a  pinch  —  if  they  could  get  there. 
He  rose  to  his  feet  and  pressed  on  to  the  gloom  at  its 
farther  end.  The  crack  went  on  into  the  rock,  and 
the  stream  murmured  up  into  the  black  distance;  but 
the  rock  walls  drew  together,  and  Kettle  could  not 
press  even  his  slim  body  in  between  them. 

A  draft  came  out  of  a  crack  with  the  water  and 
blew  its  grateful  chill  on  to  his  perspiring  face.  He 
unwound  the  irritating  head-rope  and  removed  his 
head-cloth  to  get  the  full  benefit  of  it  and  —  no  —  yes 
—  surely    there    was    another    draft    blowing    down 


A  LITTLE  BERBER  SPORT  301 

from  above.  He  shut  his  eyes  tightly,  and  then 
peered  upward  into  the  gloom.  Yes,  there  was  a  hole 
above  him. 

He  pressed  his  toes,  knees,  and  elbows  into  the 
rock  walls  and  heaved  himself  up,  chimney-sweep 
fashion,  and  presently  stood  in  a  channel  above  which 
appeared  to  lead  directly  in  toward  the  heart  of  the 
rock. 

He  had  matches,  but  they  were  few  in  number,  and 
he  did  not  want  to  waste  them.  So  he  went  ahead 
into  the  darkness,  exploring  cautiously  with  hands 
and  feet,  and  after  removing  the  glass  from  his  com- 
pass with  the  point  of  his  knife,  took  bearings  of 
direction  from  time  to  time  by  delicate  finger  touches 
on  the  bare  needle.  It  was  a  nice  piece  of  work, 
carried  out  by  a  remarkably  clever  surveyor. 

The  cleft  he  was  in  was  an  old  water  channel,  now 
dry,  which  had  broken  through  in  places  to  a  newer 
water  channel  below.  It  was  level  in  floor  and  roof, 
smooth  in  sides,  and  for  the  most  part  beyond  his 
reach  in  width,  though  here  and  there  it  contracted 
to  a  waist.  These  narrows  were  never  too  strait  for 
navigation.  And  so  he  came  on  till  the  cleft  abruptly 
ended  in  tooled  masonry,  and  a  path  (on  testing) 
proved  itself  to  fork  off  at  right  angles,  and  up  a  steep 
incline. 

"  I  reckon,"  said  Kettle,  "  that  this  puzzle  earns 
a  match,  though  I  hate  to  waste  one.  So  here  she 
goes,  and  the  Lord  grant  the  box  isn't  wet." 

The  match  gleamed  out  with  astonishing  radiance. 


302     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

Kettle  cupped  his  hand  behind  it  as  a  reflector  and 
peered  ahead.  The  path  rose  sharply;  it  was  just 
about  as  steep  as  one  could  walk  on  without  holding 
to  the  sides.  It  ran  (the  compass  told  him)  due 
northwest,  and  within  range  of  the  match  light  he  saw 
it  turn  at  right  angles,  and  the  commencement  of  an- 
other incline  that  ran  northeast. 

"  My  Great  James ! "  said  Captain  Kettle. 
"  Here's  more  of  that  infernal  saint's  fairy  story  com- 
ing true.  This  is  the  well  his  forbears  dug  in  the 
middle  of  the  castle  square  when  they  were  besieged, 
and  had  a  bit  of  spare  time  on  their  hands.  A  dozen 
feet  or  so  every  hundred  years,  wasn't  it?  Also  the 
air  was  bad;  well,  that's  a  lie,  anyway.  The  air 
here's  as  sweet  as  gin.  Wait  a  bit,  though.  What 
about  the  hole  I  got  in  at?  That's  new.  The  outside 
cake  of  stone  shelled  off  perhaps  only  a  week  ago  — ■ 
I  believe  that's  the  very  ticket,  and  the  bad  air's  an- 
other piece  of  truth  to  the  blackguard's  credit.  The 
water's  in  a  sump  at  the  bottom  all  right,  and  that 
trickle  down  the  creek  is  just  the  overflow. 

"  The  only  question  is  about  that  last  hundred  feet 
at  the  top.  If  that's  laddered,  well,  here's  as  neat  a 
back  way  in  as  any  quiet-minded  man  would  wish  to 
find.  But  if  they  operated  it  with  a  rope  and  wind- 
lass, and  the  rope's  pulled  up,  why  then  I  guess  I'm 
as  far  away  as  I  was  at  the  foot  of  the  rock  itself. 
However,  I'm  not  likely  to  find  printed  sailing  direc- 
tions, and  there's  only  one  way  to  make  sure,  and 
that's  go-look-see.     So  here's  for  the  trip." 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE    SAINT    PROPOSES 

C4T  TELL  you  it's  no  use  the  girl  trying  further," 
-*•  said  Miss  Dubbs.  "  I've  not  learned  four  words 
from  her  since  I  came  here,  and  it's  my  belief  I  never 
shall.  I  never  had  any  talent  for  languages,  Mr.  Ber- 
gash.  I  don't  know  whether  you  remember  it,  but  I 
am  the  daughter  of  a  minister,  and  no  expense  was 
spared  on  my  education.  Papa  arranged  that  I  should 
take  French  as  an  extra  at  school  for  two  whole  terms ; 
and  though  I  honestly  did  apply,  if  you'll  believe  me, 
I  really  can't  parlez-voiis  a  bit  better  now  than  many 
another  lady  that's  not  had  half  my  advantages." 

Sidi  Mahommed  Bergash  laughed.  "  My  dear  girl, 
I  didn't  expect  you  to  learn  Arabic  —  or  the  Berber 
dialect  that  we  are  pleased  to  call  Arabic  here  in  the 
Atlas  —  in  a  matter  of  four  short  days.  But  if  you 
stuck  to  it  for  three  months  you'd  be  able  to  get  along 
passably,  and  at  the  end  of  a  year  you'd  speak  it  as 
easily  as  you  do  your  own  mother  tongue.  Let  me 
tell  you,  English  is  a  far  harder  language  to  pick  up, 
and  when  I  first  went  down  from  here  I  didn't  know 
a  solitary  word  of  it.  But  I  believe  I  speak  your 
tongue  pretty  fluently  now." 

You  speak  it  far  better  than  many  gentlemen  I 

.303. 


<( 


304     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

know.  Except  that  you've  a  different  voice,  which  is 
perhaps  due  to  your  brown  beard  and  mustache,  you 
speak  it  as  well  as  Sir  George,  and  he  belongs  to  one 
of  our  oldest  families." 

The  saint  waved  away  the  compliment  with  a  slim 
hand.  "  I  speak  my  English  as  I  was  taught  by  those 
I  came  among.  Given  a  decent  memory,  and  an  ade- 
quate larynx,  any  one  can  speak  any  language  with 
any  chosen  accent.  You'll  find  that  out  presently 
when  you  really  begin  to  try.  I  hope  they  are  mak- 
ing you  pretty  comfortable  in  other  ways." 

Miss  Dubbs  pursed  her  lips.  "  I  can  never  get  to 
like  sleeping  on  the  floor,  for  one  thing." 

"I'm  awfully  sorry!  I  forgot.  We're  rather 
creatures  of  custom  here,  and  we've  chosen  to  sleep 
on  a  mat  on  the  ground  for  the  last  four  thousand 
years.  But  I'll  see  that  the  carpenters  build  you  a 
proper  bedstead  before  to-night.  I  used  to  have  one 
myself  when  I  first  came  down  here  from  Cam- 
bridge; but  it  created  prejudice  and  I  gave  it  up. 
One  soon  slips  back  to  the  old  ways.  But  you  see 
I  stuck  to  my  chair  and  table  and  the  rest  of  my 
civilization." 

"  And  your  pictures." 

"  Yes,  those  are  Cambridge  groups.  See  the 
Trinity  Hall  shield  on  the  top?  Look  rather  in- 
congruous here,  don't  they?  I  played  cricket  quite  a 
bit  up  there,  but  our  first  eleven  was  pretty  hot  stuff, 
and  I  didn't  get  my  colors  till  my  third  year,  1  was 
tried  for  the  'varsity  all  the  same." 


THE  SAINT  PROPOSES  305 

"Isn't  that  —  yes  it  is.  There's  his  name  under- 
neath—  J.  B.  Hartman.     Well  I  never!" 

"  Why,  do  you  know  him  ?  " 

"  In  a  way,  as  you  may  say,  I  did.  He  used  to 
stay  in  Foston  just  after  I  first  left  school,  and  went 
into  the  business." 

"  I  never  suspected  Hartman  of  business  tastes." 

"  Perhaps  he  hadn't.  He  was  yachting  when  he 
came  to  us." 

"  Stayed  with  you,  d'you  mean?  " 

"  At  our  hotel,  the  Mason's  Arms.  I  was  the  bar 
lady." 

Sidi  Mahommed  ran  an  appreciative  blue  eye  over 
Miss  Dubbs'  elaborate  black  hair,  her  full  color,  her 
deep  bust,  her  well-rounded  form.  He  laughed 
shortly.  "  It's  a  wonder  you've  escaped  marriage  so 
long." 

"  Getting  married  is  a  matter  of  taste.  But  in  my 
case,  Mr.  Bergash,  I  can  assure  you  it  has  not  been  for 
want  "of  opportunities.  I've  had  my  offers.  And 
though,  to  be  sure,  we  ladies  in  our  profession  have 
more  admirers  than  most,  being  as  you  may  say 
brought  into  contact  with  a  great  many  gentlemen 
every  day  of  our  lives,  I  can  tell  you  plain,  I  know 
I've  only  had  to  nod  at  least  a  dozen  times,  and  I 
could  have  settled  down,  and  a  house,  of  my  own, 
within  three  months.  But  I  preferred  my  liberty. 
And  do  still." 

"A  girl  with  your  attractions  ought  to  make  a! 
great  marriage." 


3o6     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  Oh,  I  don't  undervalue  myself.  But  I  don't  in- 
tend to  get  married.  So  we'll  please  change  the  sub- 
ject, and  as  you've  been  inquisitive,  I'll  be  the  same. 
Is  that  basin  on  my  toilet-table  made  of  tin?" 

"  I  haven't  seen  it,  but  anyway  I  can  guarantee 
the  thing  is  not  tin.  Tin  doesn't  grow  here.  If  it's 
white  metal — " 

"  It  is." 

"  Then  it's  silver.     Why?" 

"  A  silver  wash-basin !  My !  you  do  have  some 
style.  And  the  carafe  and  tooth  mug,  are  they 
brass?  " 

"  Well,  if  you  corner  me,  I'll  have  to  suggest  they're 
gold.  Why?  Do  they  taste,  or  something? 
Aren't  they  clean  ?  " 

Miss  Dubbs  looked  at  her  host  with  a  new  re- 
spect. "  I  thought  only  royalty  had  gold  and  silver 
toilet  ware?" 

"  I  believe  it's  more  the  rule  among  American  mil- 
lionaires. But  if  you  insist  on  the  point,  I  suppose 
we  can  qualify  all  right.  We  really  are  kings  in  our 
way,  and  if  you  come  to  think  of  it,  our  ancestors 
were  reigning  kings  here  in  the  Atlas  when  yours  were 
running  about  Great  Britain  discussing  the  latest  tint 
in  blue  paint." 

*'  You  needn't  be  indelicate." 

"  You  shouldn't  draw  me  on  into  bragging  com- 
parisons, then.  How  would  you  like  to  live  here? 
Look  through  the  window.  You  can't  beat  that  view 
in  all  the  world." 


THE  SAINT  PROPOSES  307 

"  A  lady  can't  live  on  view  alone,"  said  Miss  Dubbs 
shrewdly.  "  And  for  a  gentleman  who  has  been  to 
college  at  Cambridge,  your  idea  of  comfort  strikes 
me  as  incomplete.  You  give  me  a  silk  carpet  to  my 
room,  and  the  floor's  like  a  rough  stone  road  under- 
neath it;  you  put  a  gold-backed  hand-glass  on  the 
table,  but  not  a  bit  of  paper  on  the  walls;  and  you've 
got  a  yellow  metal  lamp,  inlaid  with  what  looks  like 
real  jewels  hanging  from  the  ceiling,  and  not  so  much 
as  a  single  pane  of  glass  in  the  window." 

"That's  Berber  custom.  If  I  had  an  English  wife 
it  could  be  changed." 

"And  while  she  was  at  it  (if  you'll  excuse  me 
mentioning  it)  she  might  look  after  the  cooking.  I 
don't  mind  things  a  bit  greasy,  but  really  that  Irish 
stew,  which  is  your  mama's  favorite  dish,  just 
swims  with  fat  sometimes.  And  you  ought  to  do 
something  to  the  dairy.  I  don't  call  butter  tasty  when 
it  smells  like  what  they  serve  here." 

The  kaid  beat  the  table  with  his  fist.  "  Now  you," 
he  said,  "  take  the  practical  view,  and  that  is  what  I 
like.  You  don't  talk  a  lot  of  tommy  rot  about  poetry, 
and  the  pride  of  high  place,  and  the  responsibilities 
of  rule,  and  other  things  that  I  know  about  just  as 
well  myself;  but  you've  an  eye  for  essential  facts,  and 
the  wit  to  point  out  cures  for  what  is  wrong.  I  call 
pumping  up  poetry  the  worst  kind  of  skittles." 

"  Well,  there  I  disagree  with  you.  I  can't  make 
poetry  myself,  but  a  gentleman  friend  of  mine  can 
make  the  most  beautiful  verses  that  were  ever  read 


3o8     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

or  written,  yes,  and  set  them  to  music,  and  play  them 
to  his  own  accordion  accompaniment!  And  yet  he's 
the  most  businessHke  and  practical  gentleman  I  ever 
met.  No,  never  mind  who  he  is.  That  doesn't  mat- 
ter. I  was  only  telling  you  about  him  to  prove  that 
poetry  doesn't  always  drag  a  man  down  to  long  hair 
and  a  velvet  coat.  And  that  reminds  me,  we're  here 
alone,  and  perhaps  you  won't  mind  telling.  Of 
course  I'll  keep  it  confidential,  but  are  you  really  a 
Sidi?" 

"  I'm  the  genuine  article." 

"  Meaning  saint?  " 

"  That's  it.  Beware  of  imitations.  I  insist  on 
having  the  one  and  only  original." 

"  But  some  one  told  me  —  I  mean  I  was  told  that 
one  always  addressed  a  Mohammedan  gentleman  in 
Algeria  as  *  Si '  or  *  Sidi ',  just  as  we  say  '  Mister  '." 

"  That's  perfectly  correct,  and  I'd  like  to  bet  you 
a  pair  of  gloves  I  could  name  your  informant." 

"  Well,  I  won't  bet.     But  it  was  Captain  Kettle." 

"  Precisely.  He's  tried  to  throw  doubt  on  every- 
thing about  me,  from  A  to  Z.  I  wonder  why  the 
man  detests  me  so  heartily?" 

Miss  Dubbs  laughed.  She  had  as  a  rule  a  fine,  rich, 
deep  laugh,  that  it  was  really  a  pleasure  to  listen  to; 
but  just  now  her  laughter  was  forced,  and  it  grated. 
"  I  should  say  the  reason's  perfectly  clear.  You  cut 
him  out  with  his  young  lady." 

"  How  do  you  mean?  " 

"After  you  turned  up  with  your  tale  of  being  a 


THE  SAINT  PROPOSES  309 

saint  and  all  that,  Miss  Chestennan  would  barely  so 
much  as  look  at  the  captain.  Why,  till  you  came  I 
looked  upon  them  as  good  as  engaged." 

"  Did  you  indeed  ?  About  that  saintship ;  it's 
genuine  enough.  If  I  were  to  die  to-night  my  people 
would  put  up  a  nice  neat  tomb  down  in  the  valley 
there,  with  square  corners,  and  a  round  domed  top, 
and  they'd  drop  attending  at  the  late  saint's  tomb, 
and  come  and  say  their  prayers  at  mine." 

"And  who  was  the  late  saint?  " 

"  My  father,  to  be  sure.  I  follow  on,  whether  I 
like  it  or  not,  and  the  people  are  annoyed  with  me 
because  I  show  no  present  signs  of  providing  a  suc- 
cessor to  myself.     They  say  it's  time  I  had  a  queen." 

Miss  Dubbs  looked  out  over  the  fertile  valley.  "  A 
queen !  "  she  murmured. 

"  That's  the  idea.  But  of  course  that  doesn't  inter- 
est you." 

"And  why  not?" 

"  Because  —  well,  because  you  are  engaged,  aren't 
you?" 

"  To  whom,  pray  ?  " 

"  Kettle  —  so  I  gathered." 

Miss  Dubbs  put  back  her  shoulders,  and  showed 
the  whole  of  her  splendid  height  and  figure. 

"  I'd  scorn  to  deceive  you,  Mr,  Bergash  —  or  I 
should  say,  Saint.  I  was  engaged  to  the  captain 
once.  But  it  was  a  mistake,  both  on  his  part  and  on 
mine,  and  it's  over  and  done  with.  I  wouldn't  marry 
him  now,  no,  not  if  he  was  to  come  down  on  his 


310     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

bended  knees  to  me,  no,  nor  even  if  he  was  to  ask  me 
on  paper.  If  any  lady's  seen  the  foolishness  of  mar- 
riage, without  going  so  far  as  to  have  her  finger 
burned  with  a  ring,  it's  me.  That's  straight.  You 
can  look  upon  me  as  an  old  maid,  and  glad  of  it.  No, 
Mr.  Saint,  there's  no  marrying  for  yours  truly." 

"  I  can  imagine  that  being  wife  to  a  man  who's 
away  at  sea  nine-tenths  of  the  time,  and  staying 
behind  on  a  narrow  income,  would  be  an  overrated 
amusement." 

"  It  would  be  all  right,"  snapped  Miss  Dubbs,  "  if 
the  man  was  the  right  man." 

"  Oh,  I  quite  agree  with  you  —  as  long  as  the  nov- 
elty of  it  lasted.  Only,  don't  you  think  that  the  old 
saying  about  romance  is  pretty  true?" 

"Which  old  saying?" 

"  Why,  that  romance  flies  out  of  the  window  when 
there  are  not  enough  dollars  on  the  hearth  to  keep  it 
warm.  Mark  you,  I'm  only  theorizing,  or,  to  be  more 
accurate,  quoting  theory.  For  myself,  I've  always 
been  one  of  those  very  ordinary  men  who  have  never 
known  what  it  is  to  be  otherwise  than  well-off.  I've 
always  had  more  money  than  I  knew  how  to  spend, 
and  more  servants  than  I  could  keep  amused,  and  more 
power  than  I  really  knew  what  to  do  with.  Ever  try 
power,  Miss  Dubbs?  Ever  occur  to  you  that  in  my 
small  kingdom  up  here  I'm  the  most  absolute  monarch 
now  reigning  on  earth?  I've  the  high  justice,  the 
middle,  and  the  low.  If  I  took  the  richest  of  my 
subjects  this  afternoon,  or  the  poorest,   and  cut  off 


THE  SAINT  PROPOSES  311 

his  head,  and  put  into  my  own  house  the  uttermost 
part  of  his  possessions,  do  you  think  anybody  would 
object? 

"  Not  a  soHtary  man,  woman,  or  child  of  them. 
If  to-morrow  morning  I  called  out  every  man  among 
my  subjects  between  the  ages  of  sixteen  and  sixty, 
and  led  them  against  the  sultan  of  Morocco  —  or, 
say  against  the  Wangaroo  —  led  them,  if  you  like,  to 
wdiat  they  knew  would  be  certain  death,  do  you  think 
there  would  be  a  question  asked  or  an  objection  raised? 
Not  one.  Oh,  I  tell  you  there  are  no  modern  ideas 
of  the  people's  rights  among  the  Berbers  of  the  Atlas. 
They  are  firmly  imbued  with  the  idea  that  they  merely 
remain  alive  for  the  earthly  honor  and  the  heavenly 
delight  of  serving  a  saint,  and  I  haven't  it  in  me  to 
teach  them  anything  different." 

"  You  ought  to  be  happy." 

"  I  ought.  I  believe  I  should  be  if  my  father  had 
not  made  that  one  fatal  blunder  of  sending  me  to 
England  for  an  education.  It  was  good  for  the  tribes : 
I  admit  that.  But  it  has  just  been  hell  for  me.  After 
I  have  seen  English  women  like  yourself,  who  are 
free,  practically,  as  men ;  who  ride,  dance,  play  tennis, 
write  books,  ride  to  hounds,  how  could  I  marry  a 
woman  of  my  own  people,  who  has  been  brought  up 
behind  a  veil,  and  thinks  it  immoral  to  know  how  to 
read  and  write,  or  to  have  any  idea  of  her  own?  " 

"  I  must  say  I  think  the  way  your  ladies  tattoo  the 
tops  of  their  noses  disgusting." 

"  And  if  you  like,  there's  that  also.     I  couldn't  sit 


312     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

down  for  the  rest  of  life  opposite  a  Mrs.  Bergash 
with  her  family  coat  of  arms  tattooed  in  wavy  lines 
across  her  face.  I  thought  nothing  of  it  once,  but 
now  I  simply  couldn't  do  it.  And  that,  I'll  trouble 
you,  is  only  one  result  of  Cambridge." 

"  But  wouldn't  your  people  be  annoyed  if  you  went 
outside  the  district  for  your  wife  ?  " 

"  Annoyed  with  me  ?  They  don't  know  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word.  As  I  have  tried  to  tell  you,  their 
creed  is  that  they  are  graciously  permitted  to  be  on 
earth  for  the  one  and  only  purpose  of  doing  their 
saint's  will.  And  besides,  it  has  almost  always  been 
a  custom  with  us  kaids  to  go  abroad  for  our  wives. 
The  record's  carved  up  on  the  stone  of  one  of  the 
rooms  below,  and  I'll  show  it  to  you  if  you  like. 

"  We  can't  read  a  lot  of  the  earlier  inscriptions. 
But  one  of  the  more  recent  queens  was  a  Phoenician; 
two  more  were  Carthaginians;  one  was  bought  from 
that  bigamous  old  sweep,  Solomon,  as  the  price  for 
a  Barbary  lion ;  several  were  Roman  in  Rome's  prime ; 
then  there  were  Visigoths,  and  Huns,  and  Iberians, 
and  a  Norse  girl,  and  some  French,  Two  were  Eng- 
lish, taken  from  ships  by  some  of  our  people  who  went 
a-raiding  from  Sallee.  My  grandmother  was  daugh- 
ter of  a  Spanish  consul  at  Mogadon" 

*'  But  your  mother  ?  " 

"  She  is  a  pure-blooded  Berber.  My  father  was  the 
exception  to  our  rule.  And,  moreover,  he  loved  her. 
As  I  do  also." 


THE  SAINT  PROPOSES  313 

"  I'm  sure  she's  a  very  pleasant  lady,  though  I  must 
admit  that  she  strikes  me  as  foreign." 

The  kaid  laughed.  "  She  would.  But  you've  seen 
her  here ;  you've  been  about  with  her  into  other  houses 
on  the  rock.  Did  she  leave  any  doubt  in  your  mind 
as  to  who  was  queen?" 

"  She  did  not  "—  Miss  Dubbs  shivered.  "  I  don't 
speak  Berber,  of  course,  and  I  don't  understand  a  lot 
that  goes  on,  but  I  rather  thought  she  ordered  one 
lady  we  called  on  to  be  flogged." 

*'  I'm  not  supposed  to  know  what  goes  on  behind 
the  curtain,  and  I  make  a  point  of  not  knowing.  But 
I'll  admit,  if  you  like,  that  it's  quite  possible.  My 
mother  prides  herself  on  keeping  up  the  old  Berber 
tradition,  and,  anyway,  she's  great  on  discipline. 
She's  every  inch  a  queen." 

"  Well,"  said  Miss  Dubbs  pointedly,  "  all  I  can  say 
is  you'd  better  not  let  your  Miss  Chesterman  know. 
At  the  same  time  I'll  trouble  you  not  to  scowl  at  me 
like  that.  You'll  kindly  remember  that  I'm  a  lady 
and  intend  to  be  treated  as  such." 

With  an  effort  Sidi  Mahommed  Bergash  did  not 
beat  the  table.  "  I  should  have  thought  it  might  have 
occurred  to  you  by  this  time  that  I  am  not  altogether 
a  man  to  be  fooled  with.  We  will  leave  Miss  Chester- 
man  out  of  the  conversation,  if  you  please." 

"  Then  the  conversation,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
will  end." 

"  Not  at  all.     If  you  wish  me  to  explain,   I  will 


314     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

do  so.     I  brought  Miss  Chesterman  and  her  brother 
here  as  a  means  to  an  end." 

"  Precisely." 

"  You  say  precisely.  Then  you  recognize  that  it 
was  to  bring  you  here,  Emily,  that  I  used  them  ?  " 

"  I  recognize  nothing  of  the  sort.  And  you  will 
please  remember  that  my  name  to  you,  and  for  that 
matter  to  everybody  else,  is  Miss  Dubbs." 

"  For  the  present,  if  you  like,  Miss  Dubbs  it  shall 
be.  For  the  future  we  shall  see.  In  the  meanwhile 
I  have  the  honor  to  offer  you  marriage." 

"What,  you  want  to  marry  me?" 

"  As  you  have  known  perfectly  well  all  along.  Now 
come,  my  dear  girl,  let  us  look  facts  in  the  face.  You 
are  piqued  for  the  moment  and  raw  (if  you  like) 
from  a  trivial  disappointment.  From  your  own  tell- 
ing the  affaire  Kettle  was  only  one  of  many." 

"  It  was  nothing  of  the  kind." 

"  Well,  have  it  your  own  way.  But  your  engage- 
ment with  him  is  at  an  end.  Now  look  at  what  I 
can  offer  you  —  lands,  houses,  servants,  wealth,  power. 
Did  you  ever  think  of  the  sweets  of  absolute  sway, 
Emily?  You  will  be  a  queen,  with  power  of  life 
and  death  over  all  your  subjects,  and  if  I  know  your 
capacity  I  shall  be  one  of  those  subjects  also.  You 
will  want  an  English  girl  as  companion.  I  give  you 
Miss  Chesterman.  If  you  wish  for  a  larger  kingdom 
I  will  conquer  it  for  you.  Everything  that  power  can 
get  and  love  can  think  of  will  be  yours.  And  please 
remember  this :     I  have  loved  you  from  the  first  mo- 


THE  SAINT  PROPOSES  3^5 

ment  I  put  eyes  on  you,  and  determined  then  to  make 
you  my  queen  if  love  could  do  it." 

Miss  Dubbs  stood  up  and  looked  steadily  down  into 
the  man's  blue  eyes.  "  Em  sorry  you've  spoken,"  she 
said.  "  But  you'll  give  me  credit  for  trying  to  head 
you  off  from  proposing." 

"  I  know  that,  but  Ed  too  much  at  stake  to  take 
your  hint.  Besides,  I  wanted  to  lay  out  fairly  before 
you  what  I  have  to  offer." 

"  I  would  rather  you  did  not  go  on,  because  there 
can  be  only  one  answer,  and  that's  '  no  '.  There  could 
be  no  lady  more  conscious  of  the  compliment  you  have 
paid  me.  Saint,  and  the  offer  to  make  me  a  queen  is, 
of  course,  extremely  fascinating.  But  marrying's  a 
thing  Em  set  against,  and  there  you  have  the  whole 
tale  in  a  nutshell.  I  should  like,  if  you  would  let  me, 
to  regard  you  always  as  a  very  close  friend,  but  it 
will  never  get  beyond  that.  And  now  it  would  be 
more  comfortable  for  both  of  us  if  you  changed  the 
subject." 

"  No."  The  Berber  chief's  blue  eyes  grew  hard, 
and  his  brown  beard  stuck  out  aggressively.  "  I  have 
offered  you  the  easy  path,  Emily,  and  I  have  made 
my  proposal  to  you  on  honorable  English  lines.  But 
there  is  too  much  at  stake  to  let  you  upset  all  my 
schemes  for  the  sake  of  a  paltry  whim.  To  this  valley 
and  this  rock  you  have  come,  and  here  you  will  stay 
for  the  rest  of  your  natural  life.  Make  no  mistake 
about  that.  Again  I  ask  :  will  you  be  queen  ?  " 
"  I'd  rather  die  first,"  said  Miss  Dubbs  shortly. 


3i6     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

*'  You  can  guess  the  alternative  ?  " 

*'  I  prefer  to  remember  that  you  are  a  gentleman 
with  an  English  education,  and  that,  therefore,  you 
won't  make  threats." 

"  It  would  be  better  if  you  made  no  allusion  to  the 
unfortunate  circumstance  of  my  upbringing.  I  can 
tell  you  it  has  been  the  curse  of  my  existence,  and  the 
detail  of  my  gentility  is  beginning  to  wear  very  thin. 
At  presenty  Emily,  I  am  supreme  kaid  of  the  Western 
Atlas  Berbers,  with  power  of  life,  and  death,  and  for- 
tune over  everything  within  my  marches,  and  am  in 
no  mood  to  be  thwarted."  The  blue  eyes  gazed  hun- 
grily on  the  English  girl's  splendid  womanhood.  "  So 
you  can  be  assured  of  just  one  broad  fact.  My  wife 
you  are  going  to  be,  and  it  would  be  more  comfortable 
for  both  of  us  if  you  came  to  me  willingly." 

"  That  I  never  will." 

*'  Then  I  shall  leave  you  for  the  time  being  to  think 
out  for  yourself  the  obvious  alternatives.  I  am  sure 
that  when  you  have  conned  over  the  matter  coolly,  you 
will  take  the  sensible  view.  You  are  a  sensible  level- 
headed girl,  Emily,  and  I  believe  it  is  that  which 
attracted  me  to  you  at  the  first.  I  will  go  now.  And 
I  will  come  back  for  your  favorable  decision  at  ten 
o'clock  to-night." 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE    CAPTAIN   DISPOSES 

SIDI  MAHOMMED  BERGASH  once  told  Sir 
George  Chesterman  that  tradition  in  the  Atlas 
said  the  architect  who  built  the  campanile  in  Saint 
Mark's  Square  at  Venice  was  a  Berber,  and  that  he 
got  his  idea  for  the  inclined  footways  of  that  much 
overrated  bell-tower  from  the  mode  of  descent  to  the 
siege-well  in  his  ancestral  fortress.  The  legend  may- 
or may  not  be  true,  but,  anyway,  it  is  plausible,  and 
except  that  the  man  at  Venice  turned  the  idea  inside 
out,  and  from  a  well  evolved  a  tower,  and  incidentally 
eased  the  angles  of  the  inclines,  the  plans  of  the  two 
works  are  identical. 

Captain  Kettle  felt  that  he  could  not  afford  matches, 
and,  after  the  day  had  passed,  explored  the  slopes  in 
the  inky  dark.  So,  as  I  have  only  his  report  to  go 
upon,  details  will,  for  the  most  part,  be  lacking  in 
this  memoir.  The  cut  was  only  a  trifle  over  four  feet 
wide,  so  he  could  easily  keep  a  hand  on  each  wall,  and 
having  all  of  a  sailor's  distrust  for  navigation  in 
strange  waters,  he  always  took  a  careful  sounding 
with  his  advance  foot,  and  assured  himself  that  the 
floor  was  in  place,  before  putting  weight  on  it. 
There  are  such  things  as  winzes  in  these  inclined  shafts, 

317. 


3i8     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

and  Captain  Kettle  did  not  propose  to  walk  into 
eternity  unawares,  if  ordinary  precaution  could  keep 
him  alive  and  useful. 

Of  course,  as  he  foresaw,  the  critical  bit  was  the  last 
hundred  feet,  which,  as  the  saint  had  told,  the  old 
sinkers  had  driven  vertically.  It  is  easy  to  be  wise 
after  the  event,  but  really  if  Captain  Kettle  had  been 
the  slenderest  student  of  archaeology,  his  qualms  on 
this  point  would  have  been  at  rest.  The  windlass  is  a 
comparatively  modern  machine,  and  the  sinking  of  that 
first  hundred  feet  of  well-shaft  had  antedated  it  by 
certainly  ten,  and  very  possibly  twenty  centuries. 

The  only  method  known  to  the  ancients  of  hoisting 
spoil  from  vertical  workings  was  in  skin  bags,  made 
fast  by  two,  three,  or  even  five  rawhide  ropes,  each 
manned  by  its  own  hauling  crew.  This  was  ex- 
pensive in  labor,  and  (owing  to  the  chafe  on  the  well- 
lip)  in  ropes  also,  and  therefore  it  was  avoided  as 
much  as  possible.  Only  in  rare  instances  were  the 
workers  hauled  up  vertical  shafts.  For  the  most  part 
they  climbed  up  by  notched  chicken  ladders  set 
diagonally,  though  in  the  very  early  times,  when  shafts 
measured  two  feet  nine  by  four  feet  three  as  a  standard 
all  the  world  over,  they  climbed  up  by  means  of  foot 
brackets  set  opposite  one  another  on  the  two  longer 
sides. 

The  engineer,  who  in  the  year  b.  c.  709  had  planned 
the  Bergash  well,  probably  hoped  to  strike  water 
within  the  first  hundred  feet.  When  he  was  disap- 
pointed in  this,  he  did  not  proceed  straight  away  to 


THE  CAPTAIN  DISPOSES  319 

sinking  in  inclines  from  the  bottom  of  his  hundred- 
foot  level.  That  would  have  entailed  difficulty  in 
hoisting  his  spoil. 

But  being  a  thoughtful  man,  he  put  dov^^n  another 
set  of  inclines  from  the  surface  to  the  hundred- foot 
level,  so  that  all  rock  mined  below  could  be  carried 
direct  by  baskets  and  skin  bags  to  daylight  without 
once  having  to  be  hauled  by  the  rope  men.  I  have 
often  wondered,  by  the  way,  whether  they  did  this 
work  by  driving  it  overhand  from  below.  Of  course 
upraises  .  .  .  but  that  is  a  technical  point,  which 
has  little  bearing  on  this  memoir  of  Captain  Kettle  and 
Miss  Emily  Dubbs. 

If  Captain  Kettle  had  tried  to  climb  the  hundred- 
foot  vertical  finish  to  the  well-shaft  he  would  have 
been  met  at  the  upper  end  (although,  of  course,  he  did 
not  know  this)  by  a  solid  door  of  three-inch  oak, 
held  down  by  perhaps  a  foot  of  the  gravel  which 
floored  one  of  the  courtyards  of  the  fortress.  But  at 
the  foot  of  this  vertical  shaft  he  paused,  fingering  the 
footholds,  and  recruiting  his  breath;  and  while  en- 
gaged in  these  easy  employments,  fancied  he  felt  a 
draft  in  the  neighborhood  of  his  left  ear. 

His  right  ear  was  facing  the  incline  up  which  he  had 
ascended,  and  his  left  ear  (so  he  had  imagined  in  the 
dark)  was  close  to  the  solid  rock.  In  order  that  there 
should  be  no  doubt  about  it,  he  wetted  a  finger  and 
held  it  up.  The  finger  chilled  most  distinctly  on  the 
left  side.  There  was  a  draft,  and  therefore  another 
passage  somewhere. 


320     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

He  lighted  one  of  his  precious  matches,  and  dis- 
covered the  entrance  to  the  farther  set  of  inclines  of 
which  I  have  spoken,  and  which  the  saint  had  never 
mentioned,  and  (as  it  turned  out)  had  never  heard  of. 
And  it  was  up  these,  walking,  and  not  climbing,  that 
Kettle  made  his  entrance  into  the  fortress. 

Sometime  ago,  when  during  some  forgotten  siege, 
work  on  the  bottom  incline  had  suddenly  struck  water, 
and  the  well  was  pronounced  complete,  the  surface  end 
had  been  walled  up,  and  furnished  with  a  door.  This 
"was  somewhere  about  750  or  780  a.  d.  The  well  has 
not  been  used  much  since,  because  of  its  propensity 
for  harboring  carbon  dioxid,  and  as  far  as  I  can  make 
out,  the  door  has  only  been  opened  during  five  of  the 
fortress'  many  sieges.  They  have  rock-cut  rain-water 
cisterns,  which  supply  every-day  use,  and  anything  up 
to  a  five  years'  siege. 

Of  course  the  door  has  been  renewed  a  good  many 
times  since  then,  because  even  white  oak  from  the  mid- 
Atlas  ranges  lasts  only  a  bare  eighty  years  when  it  is 
fully  exposed  to  the  weather.  But  the  same  type  of 
ponderous,  complicated,  wooden,  Berber  key  has  been 
used  during  all  the  centuries  to  shoot  the  wooden  bolt 
in  the  marvelous  wooden  lock,  and  it  is  officially  sup- 
posed to  occupy  a  nail  in  the  kaid's  treasure  vault, 
and  probably  hangs  there  to  this  day. 

The  only  drawback  to  these  old  locks  is  that  they 
are  entirely  open  on  the  inside,  and  even  without 
wasting  a  match  over  the  process,  Kettle  was  able  to 
lift  the  tumblers  one  by  one  with  his  fingers,  and  pull 


THE  CAPTAIN  DISPOSES  321 

the  cobweb-clogged  bolt  out  of  its  socket.  The  massive 
oak  door  was  inclined  to  scream  on  its  vertical  pivots. 
But  when  it  was  dragged  open  a  sixty-fourth  of  an 
inch  at  a  pull,  with  a  neat  boot  pressed  against  the  in- 
side to  steady  it,  this  complaining  sound  was  re- 
duced to  the  merest  murmur.  And  when  the  gap 
was  wide  enough,  Captain  Kettle  stepped  out  into  the 
full  smell  of  an  active  cow  stable. 

Two  lady  cows  scented  him  simultaneously,  and 
snuffled  him  with  moist  noses,  and  presently  diagnosing 
him  as  a  stranger,  plunged  backward  against  their 
head  ropes. 

"  Coosh !  coosh !  "  said  Kettle  soothingly  and  the 
cows,  not  knowing  that  British  term  of  endearment, 
plunged  harder  to  the  right  hand  and  to  the  left.  The 
sailor  was  annoyed  at  his  lack  of  agricultural  charm, 
but  took  advantage  of  the  fairway,  and  made  swift 
passage  to  the  rear,  Aloonlight  glimmered  in  through 
an  arrow-slit,  and  he  grasped  the  elementary  fact  that 
the  stable  held  another  building  above  its  sturdy 
arches. 

His  eyes,  after  their  long  training  in  the  black 
darkness  of  the  inclines,  acted  readily  in  this  gentle 
gloom.  He  made  quick  circuit  of  the  walls,  and  found 
a  door,  opened  it,  and  saw  a  street;  peered  up  and 
down  that,  discovered  it  to  be  empty,  and  then  ran 
out  to  the  opposite  wall  and  looked  upward.  He  saw 
a  big  house  above  the  cow  stable,  built  of  massive 
stone  blocks,  and  narrowly  windowed.  None  of  the 
windows  was  glazed,  and  most  were  in  darkness. 


322     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

But  three  were  lighted,  and  from  one  of  these  came 
voices.  He  thrilled  to  his  innermost  nerve  as  one  of 
the  voices  reached  him  —  and  with  it  a  faint  smell  of 
frangipani  —  and  was  within  an  ace  of  calling  out 
that  he  was  near,  and  armed,  and  full  of  fight,  and 
ready  to  upset  half  the  available  world  to  bring  as- 
sistance. He  had  the  words  "  Miss  Dubbs  "  on  the 
edge  of  his  lips,  when  common  prudence  drummed 
into  him  that  there  were  ten  thousand  men  within  call, 
and  if  he  wanted  to  be  useful  he  must  employ  wit,  and 
not  cominon  vulgar  valor.  He  searched  the  wall  of 
the  big  house  for  its  main  entrance  door,  found  it,  ran 
across,  opened  and  entered. 

Within  was  a  most  exasperating  warren  of  pas- 
sages and  stairs.  There  seemed  to  be  no  ordinary 
human  plan,  no  method,  in  the  architecture  of  that 
Berber  interior.  There  were  steep  stairs  and  narrow 
stairs,  passages  on  the  level  and  passages  on  the  in- 
cline, straight  passages,  and  others  that  wound  in 
figures  of  eight.  Also,  although  the  inside  partition 
walls  were  eight  to  ten  feet  thick,  the  whole  house 
seemed  full  of  the  murmur  and  whisper  of  voices,  and 
warm  with  human  occupation,  and  savory  with  the 
smell  of  cooking. 

It  was  all  unnerving  enough  to  the  amateur,  but 
Captain  Owen  Kettle  was  a  man  of  brazen  nerve.  He 
resolutely  pushed  a  black  rifle  muzzle  ahead  of  him, 
and  went  on  with  his  exploration  without  any  accelera- 
tion to  his  heart-beats. 

He  turned  so  many  times  that  in  spite  of  his  sea 


THE  CAPTAIN  DISPOSES  323 

training  for  courses  he  was  frankly  lost  in  the  maze 
of  alleys  and  arches.  Three  times  he  thought  he  had 
hit  on  the  right  room,  and  listened  at  a  nail-studded 
door,  and  heard  only  the  twitter  of  foreign  speech. 
But  at  last  he  came  to  a  narrow  window  which  looked 
on  the  street  he  had  recently  left,  and  from  that  he  got 
his  bearings. 

He  turned  sharply  to  his  left,  burst  into  an  ante- 
room —  and  found  it  empty.  But  he  was  on  the  right 
track  now.  Miss  Dubbs'  full  rich  contralto  was  giving 
forth  strong  opinions  from  close  at  hand. 

Kettle  turned  to  the  door  behind  him  and  shut  it, 
and  finding  a  heavy  bronze  bolt,  shot  that  into  its 
stone  socket.     Then  once  more  he  pressed  ahead. 

The  next  room  was  a  surprise  to  him.  The  voices 
had  stopped  for  the  moment,  and  he  looked  about  him 
in  wonder.  On  the  walls  were  photographs  of  Eng- 
lish cricket  elevens  in  flannels,  association  foot-ball 
teams  in  their  quaint  attire,  and  groups  of  self-con- 
scious young  men  in  straw  hats  and  weird  ill-cut 
tweeds,  all  framed  in  oak,  and  surmounted  by  gaudy 
coats  of  arms  in  colors. 

There  were  English  tobacco-pipes  and  Moorish 
sabers,  yellow-backed  novels,  and  a  yard-long  British 
posthorn,  a  fox's  mask,  and  a  stale  copy  of  the  Sport- 
ing Times  in  this  amazing  room.  On  a  side  table 
among  ash  trays  was  a  heavy  .450  Hopkins  Allen  re- 
volver. Captain  Kettle  picked  it  up,  found  it  to  be 
loaded,  and  put  it  in  one  of  the  pockets  of  his  jellab 
for  future  reference.     And  at  that  moment  the  voice 


324     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

of  Miss  Dubbs,  crying  out  in  terror,  thrilled  him  in  a 
way  he  had  never  been  thrilled  before. 

There  was  another  doorway  to  the  room,  hidden 
by  a  drapery.  He  dashed  through  this  and  saw  the 
girl  struggling  in  Sidi  Mahommed  Bergash's  arms. 

The  way  that  Berber  kaid  was  thrown  to  the 
ground  surprised  him.  He  was  clutched  by  iron 
hands,  shaken  with  a  tigerish  ferocity  and  strength, 
plucked  from  his  feet  and  thrown  sprawling  as  though 
he  had  been  as  inanimate  as  a  pillow. 

The  sailor  stood  over  him  with  uplifted  gun  butt. 

"  I'll  teach  you  to  lay  your  sacrilegious  hands  on 
Miss  Dubbs,  you  brown-bearded  son  of  an  unqualified 
pastry-cook.  You'll  apologize  to  her  here  and  now 
for  what  you've  said  and  done,  or  I'll  smash  your 
worthless  head  like  a  rotten  egg-shell,  and  glad  of 
the  chance." 

"  I  offered  to  make  her  my  queen,  and  that  I  take 
It  is  no  insult.  But  if  my  wooing  was  too  rough  for 
the  lady's  taste,  then  for  this  I  do  apologize." 

"  I  call  that  half-hearted.  Miss  Dubbs,  you  needn't 
accept  it  unless  you  choose.  Besides  I  don't  know 
how  deep  his  insults  have  gone.  Say  the  word,  and 
I'll  kill  him." 

"  Thank  you,  Captain,  he  did  propose,  and  I  re- 
fused ;  and  well,  that's  over,  and  we'll  say  no  more 
about  it.  But  I'm  glad  you  came.  I  don't  know  what 
I  should  have  done  without  you.  Oh,  Captain,  take 
me  away  from  this.     Take  me  back  to  your  ship." 

"  Certainly,  Miss  Dubbs,  certainly  I  will.     There, 


THE  CAPTAIN  DISPOSES  325 

don't  you  fret  any  further,  and  if  you  feel  a  little 
trembly,  please  sit  down  on  this  sofa,  and  presently  it 
will  pass  away.  Try  a  drop  out  of  this  bottle.  It's 
Horner's  Perfect  Ciu^e,  and  you  will  find  that  it 
meets  your  case.  And  as  for  you,  Mr.  Bergash,  if 
you  attempt  to  stir  from  that  floor  till  I  am  ready  for 
you,  I'll  put  you  to  sleep  permanently.  So  chew  on 
that,  you  dog.  Now  tell  me  where  are  my  owner  and 
his  sister." 

"  In  their  rooms." 

"  Free  and  at  liberty  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  kaid. 

"  No,"  said  Miss  Dubbs. 

Captain  Kettle's  boot  shot  out  and  crashed  into  the 
kaid's  ribs  with  a  regular  Cape  Horn  mate's  kick. 
*'  Lie  to  me,  you  swine,  and  I'll  stove  in  every  slat  in 
your  body.     Where  are  their  rooms  ?  " 

"  Below.  I  suppose  they  would  call  it  in  the  base- 
ment. They  got  troublesome,  and  I  had  to  put  them 
somewhere  where  they  couldn't  create  a  disturbance. 
It  was  for  their  own  good.  If  my  people  here  had 
gathered  that  Chesterman  was  shouting  threats  and 
insults  at  me,  they'd  have  killed  him  and  his  sister  out 
of  hand.  I  can't  get  them  to  understand  that  I'm 
looked  upon  as  a  holy  man,  and  the  people  here  would 
consider  it  a  mere  act  of  piety  to  knock  on  the  head 
anybody  that  annoyed  me." 

'■'Holy  man!  You!  I'll  handle  you  before  your 
people  in  a  way  I  wouldn't  handle  a  yellow  dog,  if 
you  give  me  trouble.     Let  me  see  if  you  are  armed." 


326     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

The  little  sailor  ran  a  skilled  hand  over  the  kaid's 
clothing.  "  Apparently  not.  Left  your  Hopkins 
Allen  in  the  next  room  before  you  came  along  here 
to  insult  a  defenseless  lady,  through  fear,  I  suppose, 
that  she'd  pull  it  and  use  it  on  you?  Well,  I've  that 
gun  in  my  pocket,  and  another  to  match  it.  Miss 
Dubbs,  my  dear,  might  I  trouble  you  to  carry  this 
Winchester  rifle?  If  anybody  annoys  you,  if  you'll 
kindly  place  this  small  end  up  against  their  clothes,  and 
pull  this  trigger  here,  I'll  be  obliged  to  you.  And 
now,  Mr.  Bergash,  on  to  your  feet.  Smartly  there! 
Attention !  You  are  to  stand  exactly  still  till  you  are 
given  my  permission  to  move." 

"  If  you  want  the  girl,"  said  the  kaid,  "  and  she 
wants  you,  take  her  and  go." 

"  Say  '  sir '  when  you  address  me,  and  don't  speak 
until  you're  spoken  to.  By  James,  you've  got  to  learn 
respect,  and  you'll  find  the  lessons  rough  if  I  have  to 
give  them  to  you.  Don't  slouch  like  that !  Stand 
erect,  you  swine.  Heels  together,  and  clasp  your 
hands  behind  the  back  of  your  neck.  Now,  then, 
you're  to  lead,  when  I  give  the  word,  to  the  place  where 
Sir  George  and  Miss  Violet  are  jailed.  If  there  are 
any  unpleasant  incidents  by  the  way,  you  can  rest  as- 
sured that  they  will  end  fatally  for  you.  I  shan't 
shoot  you  dead.  I  shall  plug  you  through  the  liver 
• — just  —  there  —  d'you  feel?  And  if  that  won't 
make  you  run  straight,  I'll  attend  to  you  some  more. 
Understand?" 

"Yes,  sir." 


THE  CAPTAIN  DISPOSES  327 


(( 


Are  the  passages  to  this  strong  room  lighted  ?  " 

"  They  are." 

Captain  Kettle's  foot  shot  out.  "  They  are  — 
iwhat?" 

"  They  are,  sir." 

"  You're  improving.  Now  let  me  warn  you  not  to 
get  tempted  to  slip  off  into  any  nice,  quiet,  gloomy 
corner.  I've  got  eyes  like  a  cat  for  the  dark,  and  I'll 
shoot  you,  if  you  try  that  or  any  other  game,  before 
you  have  time  to  think.     Quite  understand  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  There's  just  one  thing  more.  If  you  meet  any 
of  your  friends  on  the  way  and  the  nature  of  the 
procession  isn't  clear  to  them,  I  leave  you  to  make  the 
necessary  explanations.  And  look  here,  my  lad, 
maybe  you  have  not  heard  me  talk  in  the  tongues  of 
this  part  of  the  world,  but  I'm  a  seafaring  officer, 
and  I  can  tell  you  I've  a  working  knowledge  of  more 
languages  than  you  ever  heard  of.     Got  that?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  Then  quick  march !  Miss  Dubbs,  I  ask  your  par- 
don for  walking  in  front  of  you,  but  for  the  moment 
it  seems  necessary.  You  needn't  carry  your  finger  on 
that  trigger  while  you're  walking.  Rest  it  on  the 
trigger  guard  —  yes,  like  that  —  and  then  it  will  slip 
handily  on  to  the  place  when  it's  wanted.  That  rifle 
pulls  off  a  trifle  easily.  Go  steady,  Bergash.  This  is 
the  rogue's  goose-step  you're  giving  us,  not  a  foot- 


race." 


Mahommed  Bergash,  Cambridge  graduate,  kaid  of 


328     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

the  Western  Atlas  Berbers,  and  saint  of  the  stock  of 
the  prophet,  was  cowed.  Up  till  now  he  had  seen  in 
Captain  Kettle  the  somewhat  acid  shipmaster  and  the 
creature  of  a  whimsical  owner;  but  of  a  sudden  he 
recognized  in  him  the  incarnation  of  energy,  and,  if 
needs  be,  tragedy. 

He  fully  grasped  that  Kettle  would,  if  occasion  de- 
manded it,  shoot  him  with  as  little  compunction  as  he, 
Sidi  Mahommed  Bergash,  would  order  the  extinction 
of  an  inconvenient  tribesman;  and,  in  spite  of  himself, 
he  was  mastered. 

The  kaid  was  no  coward.  In  ordinary  tribal  fight- 
ing with  the  Moroccan  Moors  he  had  stared  death  in 
the  face  a  dozen  times  before,  without  awe  and  with- 
out tremor.  But  this  was  somehow  different;  the 
threat  of  death  was  a  minor  item;  it  was  the  sailor's 
tremendous  personality  that  made  his  spirit  bend. 

He  walked  ahead  as  a  docile  guide.  Twice  in  the 
wandering  alleys  of  the  house  he  met  members  of  his 
household,  and  dismissed  them  elsewhere  with  a  word : 
and  finally,  "  That  is  the  door,  sir,"  he  said.  "  May  I 
drop  one  hand  from  my  neck  to  open  it  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Captain  Kettle,  "  open  the  door,  hook 
up  your  hand  again,  and  then  march  inside  ahead  of 
us." 

In  this  ungracious  procession  then.  Captain  Kettle 
once  more  came  into  the  society  of  his  owner  and  his 
owner's  sister,  and  Sir  George  Chesterman,  on  his 
part,  could  not  have  been  more  surprised  if  the  em- 


THE  CAPTAIN  DISPOSES  329 

peror   of   China   had   walked   in  to   pay   an   evening 
call. 

Miss  Chesterman,  it  was  clear,  was  on  the  verge  of 
a  demonstration.  The  affair,  it  is  true,  had  gone 
much  further  than  she  ever  intended ;  she  had,  in  fact, 
been  horribly  frightened  (and  with  very  good  cause)  ; 
but  her  passion  for  Captain  Kettle  was  still  hot,  and 
she  had  it  in  her  to  have  thrown  wild  arms  of  grati- 
tude round  his  neck,  and  hailed  him  as  her  world  and 
her  preserver. 

But  the  sight  of  that  acid,  little,  precise  man  with 
the  red  torpedo  beard  had  a  damping  effect  on  hys- 
terics, and  something  she  caught  in  the  eye  of  her  fel- 
low-woman clenched  her  self-restraint.  Miss  Dubbs 
might  be  in  mortal  danger,  but  to  her  employer's 
shrewd  vision  she  was  glorious  with  triumph. 

"  Sir,"  said  Captain  Kettle  to  Sir  George,  "  I 
gather  that  this  swine  of  a  saint  has  been  misbehav- 
ing himself.  That  being  the  case,  I  take  it  you  will 
not  care  to  stay  longer  under  his  roof." 

Sir  George  Chesterman  laughed  ruefully.  "  So 
great  is  my  distaste  for  his  hospitality  that  I'd  give 
all  I  possess  to  be  back  once  among  the  friendly  cock- 
roaches on  the  IVangaroo.  But  I  suppose  one  might 
as  well  wish  to  be  in  the  moon.  How  in  the  world  did 
you  get  here,  Skipper  ?  " 

"  Walked,  sir.  It  struck  me  that  I  might  be  useful 
to  you,  as  owner.  So  I  came.  I  propose  we  ride 
back,  and  that  is  a  thing  this  man  Bergash  is  going  to 


330     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

arrange,  if  you  will  authorize  him  to  do  so.  But  be- 
fore letting  him  proceed  to  that,  I  want  to  know  if  you 
have  any  complaints  to  make  that  you  would  like  me 
to  take  payment  for  out  of  his  skin  ?  " 

"  I  will  cancel  everything  for  a  free  passage  to  the 
sea." 

"  And  you,  miss  ?  " 

"  No,  no.     Only  get  me  away." 

"  Right,  miss.  Then  if  you,  sir,  and  your  sister, 
and  Miss  Dubbs  will  kindly  make  the  most  of  this  un- 
comfortable room  for  the  next  ten  minutes,  I  will  take 
Bergash  outside  again  and  have  a  little  heart-to-heart 
talk  with  him  over  certain  arrangements  for  the  com- 
fort of  all  of  us.  You  have  the  Winchester.  I'll 
leave  you  also  this  Hopkins  Allen,  which  I  find  too 
straight  in  the  stock  for  my  particular  brand  of  fancy 
shooting." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

A   CHARGE   OF   CAVALRY 

*  I  ^HE  one  and  only  gateway  to  the  Bergash  fortress, 
-•'  as  I  have  recorded  above,  was  just  wide  enough 
for  the  passage  of  a  gravid  cow.  The  middle  of  the 
arch  is  higher  to-day  than  the  original  architect  in- 
tended, because  in  the  course  of  centuries  the  humps 
of  passing  camels  have  worn  a  central  gutter  out  of 
the  hard  limestone.  The  wall  at  that  point  is  four- 
teen feet  thick  of  solid  masonry,  and  above  the  gate- 
way are  the  usual  conveniences  for  pouring  boiling 
lead  on  unwelcome  callers. 

There  were  iron  spikes  on  the  top  of  the  wall  above 
the  gate,  and  through  many  centuries  these  had  been 
decorated  with  the  heads  of  the  kaid's  enemies  —  the 
old  heads  being  refreshed  from  time  to  time  by  those 
of  more  recent  cropping. 

But  when  the  latest  saint  returned  from  the  lands 
of  the  infidel  with  a  rabbit-skin  B.  A.  hood  in  his  sad- 
dle-bags, and  a  certain  impatience  for  conservative 
customs,  he  had  ordered  the  last  selection  of  heads  to 
be  thrown  away,  and  since  then  he  had  not  renewed 
them. 

All  places  have  their  customs,  and  though  the 
reasons  for  many  of  them  have  been  wiped  away  dur- 

331 


332     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

ing  the  passage  of  years,  the  customs  remain.  In  the 
Bergash  fortress  it  was  a  habit,  when  you  were  going 
abroad,  to  bedeck  your  camel  with  all  his  elaborate 
furniture  in  the  street  outside  your  own  front  door. 
,When  it  was  all  nicely  in  position,  you  marched  off  to 
the  one  entrance  gate  of  the  fortress,  stripped  your 
beast  to  the  bare  hair  (or  mangy  skin),  squeezed  him 
out  through  the  doorway,  and  carried  the  trappings 
through  the  hole  in  the  wall  yourself. 

Afterward  you  reassembled  your  ship  of  the  desert 
and  his  furniture  on  the  narrow  causeway  outside. 
That  was  all  excessively  inconvenient,  and  when  there 
was  a  rush  on,  dangerous.  Camels,  and  loads,  and 
even  passengers  have  many  a  time  been  levered  over 
the  edges  of  the  causeway  and  crashed  down  a  good 
ninety  feet  to  the  rocks  below  when  the  brutes  really 
began  to  snarl  and  wrestle. 

But  there  was  probably  a  good  reason  for  the  cus- 
tom in  the  past,  though  that  reason  is  forgotten  now. 
Anyway,  it  is  worthy  of  record  that  the  latest  kaid, 
Sidi  Mahommed,  was  within  an  ace  of  losing  his 
valued  life  by  being  carried  over  the  causeway  edge  by 
a  rearing  camel,  and  Captain  Kettle  saved  him  by 
shooting  the  brute  in  mid-air,  and  lugging  his  holiness 
off  its  back  just  as  he  was  in  the  very  act  and  article 
of  toppling  off  to  destruction  below. 

"  I  have  to  thank  you  for  my  neck,"  the  kaid  ac- 
knowledged. "  I  very  nearly  provided  my  countrymen 
with  a  new  saint,  and  left  them  without  a  successor." 

*'  Say  *  sir ',  when  you  address  me,"  said  Kettle  un- 


A  CHARGE  OF  CAVALRY  333 

graciously,  "  and  order  out  another  deck-house  and  a 
camel  that's  been  properly  broken.  And  tell  your 
groom  to  jump  lively." 

The  kaid  gave  sharp  orders  in  Berber,  and  his 
men  flew  to  carry  them  out.  "  You  make  things  very 
awkward  for  me,  sir,"  he  said  rather  querulously.  "  I 
tell  you  that  only  our  women  folk,  and  babes,  and 
wounded  men,  travel  in  these  deck-houses,  as  you  are 
pleased  to  call  them.  A  man  looks  ridiculous  in  our 
eyes  in  such  a  conveyance." 

"  You  will  look  ridiculous  in  anything  I  please. 
You  say  wounded  men  travel  in  them.  You'll  c[ualify 
as  one  of  those  if  I  have  much  more  of  your  lip. 
Here's  the  order  of  the  march :  a  covered  camel  carry- 
ing the  two  ladies,  then  Sir  George  on  that  horse  which 
is  trying  to  kick  him  off,  and  can't,  with  you  and  me 
on  another  covered  camel  bringing  up  the  rear." 

"  Very  good,  sir.  I  may  point  out  that  if  we  don't 
have  my  usual  escort,  it's  about  a  pound  to  a  brick  we 
get  mopped  up  by  some  of  those  enterprising  coast 
tribes  which  you  disbelieve  in,  but  which  I  have  be- 
fore had  the  honor  of  telling  you  have  paid  a  good 
many  attentions  to  you  and  the  Norman  Tozvers  al- 
ready." 

Captain  Kettle  winced.  The  kaid's  words  had  a 
way  of  coming  true.  "  Very  well.  Order  up  your  men 
to  fall  in  behind.  Only  remember  that  if  they  play 
games,  you'll  be  the  first  to  pay." 

To  give  the  Berbers  their  due,  there  was  no  southern 
dilatoriness  about  them.     Moors  or  Arabs  of  the  desert 


334     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

would  have  taken  half  a  clay  to  get  that  douar  under 
way;  these  men  had  the  beasts  on  the  move  across 
the  causeway  inside  the  half -hour. 

Kettle  and  his  prisoner  sat  in  seats  slung  on  either 
side  of  their  camel,  and  were  jolted  violently  forward 
and  aft  by  reason  of  the  gait  that  amiable  quadruped 
assumes,  even  on  level  ground;  and  when  they  began 
to  descend  the  slopes  of  the  mountains,  Kettle  who 
was  new  to  it,  thought  he  would  be  burst  asunder. 
The  kaid  watched  him  for  some  miles  with  malicious 
amusement,  and  then  twitched  up  his  own  clothes,  and 
showed  the  ordinary  camel-rider's  belt. 

"  I  should  like  to  suggest,  sir,"  said  he,  "  that  you 
take  this  strip  of  cloth  (which,  as  you  may  see,  is  de- 
signed for  the  purpose)  and  bind  yourself  round  like 
this.  If  you  don't,  you  will  probably  come  to  pieces, 
and  remain  so  for  the  rest  of  your  natural  career." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Kettle,  and  followed  out  the 
expert's  suggestion,  marveling  the  while  it  should  have 
been  made.  "  Probably  to  lull  my  suspicions,"  he  told 
himself  promptly,  "so  that  he  can  get  the  drop  on 
me,  and  put  his  ugly  fingers  once  more  on  the  owner 
and  the  ladies."  And  he  watched  his  blue-eyed  fellow- 
passenger  with  extreme  narrowness. 

The  camels  set  the  pace  at  a  steady  three  and  a  half 
miles  an  hour,  uphill  and  down  dale,  no  more,  no  less. 
They  swung  on,  remorseless  as  destiny,  and  the  cavalry 
escort  jingled  in  their  wake.  They  journeyed  on 
throughout  the  cool  night,  taking  a  far  shorter  route 
than  the  circuitous  one  by  which  Kettle  had  traveled; 


A  CHARGE  OF  CAVALRY  Z35. 

and  when  day  began  to  show  in  the  higher  layers  of 
the  atmosphere,  they  were  already  among  the  lower 
slopes  of  the  foot-hills. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  you  are  asleep,  sir,"  said 
the  kaid. 

"  I'm  not." 

"  Then  perhaps  you  are  a  little  dull  in  your  hear- 
ing.    But  there's  pretty  heavy  firing  ahead  of  us." 

"  Are  you  sure  it  isn't  the  surf  on  the  beach  and 
on  those  reefs  ?  " 

"  There  is  that  as  well.  But  there's  firing,  all 
right.  You  know  I'm  used  to  picking  up  these 
sounds." 

"  You're  right ;  you've  good  ears.  I  suppose  It 
means  that  your  men  are  attacking  my  steamboat. 
Well,  McTodd  will  attend  to  them  efficiently.  But, 
by  James !  I  can't  afford  to  miss  more  of  the  scrap. 
Here  you,  tell  your  drivers  to  hurry  these  camels." 

The  saint  called  an  order.  *'  By  the  way,"  he 
added,  "  I  don't  know  if  you  still  go  on  the  simple 
principle  of  disbelieving  everything  I  say.  But  if  you 
don't,  I  may  mention  that  the  people  who  are  kicking 
up  a  row  ahead  aren't  my  men  at  all." 

"  Then  who  are  they  ?  " 

"  The  same  crew  who've  been  worrying  you  all 
along.  They  live  on  the  coast  here.  There  are 
Moors  among  them,  and  men  from  the  Sus  tribes, 
and  Arabs  of  the  deserts  to  the  South,  with  a  few 
Twaracks  thrown  in,  and  perhaps  here  and  there  a 
Berber,  who  has  been  chucked  out  of  my  place  for 


336     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

misbehavior.  They're  a  mongrel  lot,  very  hard,  and 
very  savage,  and  very  dangerous,  and  I'm  sure  you'll 
learn  it  w^ith  satisfaction  —  they'd  just  as  soon  cut 
my  throat  as  yours." 

"  I  hear  you  say  it." 

The  saint  turned  to  face  his  persecutor,  and  placed 
a  lean  small  hand  on  the  camel's  hump,  which  throbbed 
and  wavered  between  them.  "  Look  here,  Captain 
Kettle,  you've  hated  me  pretty  tenderly  since  the  first 
moment  of  our  meeting,  and  I'm  free  to  own  I've  de- 
tested you  quite  as  much.  But  for  the  time  being  I 
want  to  propose  a  truce." 

"  I  don't  see  cause  for  it." 

**  Man,  hear  sense.  I  don't  care  two  straws  whether 
you  are  killed  in  the  next  half-hour,  or  whether  you 
are  not.  I  don't  care  much  if  I  am  knocked  on  the 
head  myself.  But  for  the  women  I  do  care.  lam  — 
no,  I  won't  put  it  that  way.  We  both  of  us  are  very 
fond  of  one  of  them,  and  the  fate  of  women  who  get 
into  the  hands  of  those  howling  devils  down  there  is 
too  awful  to  think  about. 

"  With  my  escort  to  help  we  may  get  through, 
though  I  admit  it's  a  thinnish  chance.  But  if  you  in- 
sist on  keeping  me  cooped  up  in  this  cubbyhole,  the 
escort  will  begin  to  inquire  directly  why  I'm  here. 
You  see,  being  rather  a  dissatisfied  person,  I've  got  a 
reputation  of  being  in  the  thick  of  it  when  there's  a 
skirmish  going,  and  their  curiosity  on  the  matter  will 
be  natural  enough.  When  they  do  begin  to  put  in 
their  questions,  I  suppose  you'll  shoot  me  out  of  hand, 


A  CHARGE  OF  CAVALRY  337 

and  proceed  to  enjoy  yourself  among  the  escort. 
Well,  that  would  be  all  very  interesting  as  a  side  issue, 
but  it  doesn't  strike  me  as  the  best  way  of  looking  after 
the  ladies'  interest." 

"Or  Sir  George's,"  Kettle  admitted.  "And  he's 
my  owner.  By  James!  it  strikes  me  I've  come  very 
near  to  neglecting  duty." 

It  was  a  bitter  pill  to  have  a  home  truth  like  this 
thrown  against  him  by  Sidi  Bergash.  But  Captain 
Kettle  always  had  an  exact  sense  of  fairness.  He 
thought  a  moment,  and  then  he  held  out  a  hand.  "  I 
thank  you,  Mr.  Bergash,"  he  said  simply,  "  for  remind- 
ing me  of  what's  my  duty.  May  I  ask  if  you're  open 
to  accepting  employment  ?  " 

The  Berber  chief  saw  the  point  and  laughed.  "  As 
commander  of  your  escort?  I'll  take  it.  My  people 
have  been  mercenary  soldiers  off  and  on  for  some 
three  thousand  years  and  more,  and  although  this  will 
be  my  first  bit  of  hired  service,  there  is  no  reason  why 
I  should  kick  at  the  tribal  custom.  The  only  thing 
left  to  settle  is,  I  think,  the  pay.  We  mercenaries 
guarantee  fidelity,  of  course,  as  long  as  the  pay  suits 
us,  and  is  forthcoming  regularly.  But  when  that 
stops,  why  then  we  hold  ourselves  free  to  chop  round 
and  serve  under  another  flag." 

"  Pay  ? "  repeated  Captain  Kettle,  and  pulled 
vexedly  at  his  red  torpedo  beard. 

"Why  not?  You  serve  Sir  George  for  pay  your- 
self, I  suppose?  " 

"  I  do.     But  you !  you  quite  took  me  in  with  your 


338     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

tales  of  gold-dust  and  the  rest  of  it.  I  never  dreamt 
you  were  out  for  your  ten  or  fourteen  pounds  a 
month." 

Again  the  kaid  laughed.  "  Pardon  me,  but  your 
ideas  are  so  eminently  British.  You  think  that  hard 
cash  is  the  cure  and  pay  for  everything.  Why, 
throughout  all  my  people's  soldiering  through  all  the 
centuries,  I  never  heard  they  served  for  money.  Some 
of  them  —  the  slingers  especially  —  like  the  men  of  the 
Balearic  Islands,  took  wine  and  women  for  their  pay; 
others  asked  for  ornaments  for  their  friends  at  home, 
and  some  went  as  mercenaries  for  the  sheer  sport  of 
the  thing.  But  for  myself" — the  blue  eyes  looked 
keenly  — "  wottld  it  surprise  you  to  hear  that  I  am  like 
an  Islander  of  the  Balearics  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Kettle  with  a  happy  flash  of  memory. 
"  They  fought  for  a  fee  of  women  and  wine,  but  also 
they  fought  naked.  Now  you  are  clothed;  you've 
been  to  college  at  Cambridge,  and  you  aren't  going  to 
bargain  like  a  naked  savage." 

'^  Touche,"  said  the  Kaid,  throwing  up  a  slim  finger 
to  his  head-rope. 

"  And,  curse  your  impudence,  there's  my  Winches- 
ter to  beat  time  with.  Here,  make  this  earthquake  of 
a  camel  heave  to,  and  let's  taste  God's  air  again  from 
the  top  of  horses.  I'm  choked  in  this  blanket-topped 
hansom.  Now  you've  remembered  you're  a  white 
man,  the  thing's  all  simple,  and  why  you  couldn't  have 
done  it  before,  and  saved  me  all  this  bother  and  lan- 
guage, beats  me." 


A  CHARGE  OF  CAVALRY  339 


tt 


A  man  must  be  a  fool  sometimes,  I  suppose,"  said 
the  kaid  shortly,  "  and  the  other  was  my  day.  Take 
this  black  horse :  he's  my  own,  and  you'll  like  him. 
I'll  ride  that  bay.  If  it  comes  to  a  charge,  I  need 
hardly  say,  don't  go  at  it  hell  for  leather.  We've  got 
to  keep  back  to  camel's  pace.  Ah,  good  morning, 
Chesterman.  Captain  Kettle  and  I  have  both  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  we've  been  behaving  like  a  pair  of 
idiots,  and  so  we've  arranged  to  ride  level  through 
what's  ahead.  I'm  sure  you'll  be  delighted  to  join, 
and  give  your  old  yeomanry  tricks  a  chance." 

"  Hum,"  said  Sir  George,  who  was  feeling  sore. 

"  I'll  ride  ahead  if  you  like,"  said  the  saint,  "  and 
you  can  shoot  me  in  the  back  if  I  still  look  doubtful." 

The  big  man  shrugged  the  shoulders  inside  his 
loose  untidy  coat.  "  If  I  trust  a  man  at  all,  I  trust 
him  right  through.  If  the  skipper  says  you're  all 
right,  that'll  do  for  me.  What's  that  ahead?  A 
cavalry  flanking  party,  by  jove!  " 

The  kaid  gave  a  sharp  order,  and  the  escort  cantered 
up  and  formed  round  the  camels.  There  were  twenty- 
five  of  them,  all  told,  so  that  the  douar,  with  the  camel 
drivers  and  British,  numbered  in  all  some  five  and 
thirty  souls. 

"  Why  are  they  wearing  respirators  ?  " 

"  Twaracks,"  said  the  kaid  shortly.  "  By  your  leave 
I'll  just  try  an  experiment."  He  put  thin  fingers  be- 
tween his  bearded  lips  and  blew  a  high-pitched  whistle. 
It  squealed  out  into  the  night,  two  long  blasts  and  a 
short,  all  on  the  same  note;  and  then  aft^r  a  pause 


340     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

he  blew   two   short  blasts   and  a  long,   half   a  tone 
lower. 

The  squadron  leader  of  the  Twaracks  threw  up  a 
long-barreled   gun,    and   his   men   halted.     The   saint 
wheeled  his  bay  clear  of  the  others,  so  that  he  was  a 
plain  mark  to  see,  or  be  shot  at.     The  squadron  leader 
of  the  black  troop  gazed  a  moment,  acknowledged  the 
other  with  a  gun-wave,  then  wheeled  his  horse  and 
galloped  back  into  the  shadows  by  the  way  he  had 
come,  with  his  horsemen  thudding  at  his  heels. 
"  Friend  of  yours  ?  "  asked  Captain  Kettle. 
"  Nothing  of  the  sort.     Didn't  I  tell  you  he  was  a 
masked  Twarack?     He's  a  pirate  of  the  desert  out 
yonder  to  the  south  and  east,  and  I  guess  he'd  come  in 
here  to  raid  the  raiders  who  appear  to  be  raiding  your 
steamer.     Let's  hope  he'll  continue  to  do  it." 
"  You  seemed  to  know  his  helm  signals?  " 
"  Precisely.     And  may  I  suggest,  my  good  sir,  that 
you   don't   know   all   the   international   codes?     You 
Europeans  are  in  the  very  infancy  of  long  distance  sig- 
naling.    And  even  when  we  others  in  Africa  show 
you  how  to  do  the  trick,  you  don't  seem  able  to  learn. 
By  jove!  look  out  now.     Here's  the  real  thing." 

A  howling  mob  in  white  billowy  draperies  poured 
out  from  behind  a  shoulder  of  the  sand-hills,  and  the 
night  kindled  and  roared  with  the  discharge  of  their 
guns.  But  the  range  was  too  far  for  the  inaccurate 
muzzle-loaders  to  be  effective,  and  barring  a  camel 
slightly  hit  (it  was  not  that  which  carried  the  ladies), 
no  damage  was  done. 


A  CHARGE  OF  CAVALRY  341 

The  damaged  camel  was  allowed  to  drop  behind, 
and  the  others  were  flogged  and  dagger-pricked  into 
something  nearly  approaching  speed.  The  enemy 
were  hard  at  work  reloading;  but  charging  and  prim- 
ing a  musket  of  true  Moroccan  build  is  a  work  of  art 
and  time,  and  before  more  than  a  dozen  of  the  weap- 
ons could  be  hurriedly  squibbed  off  against  them. 
Captain  Kettle,  the  saint,  and  Sir  George  Chesterman, 
riding  abreast,  smashed  down  into  the  middle  of  the 
enemy. 

Each  did  terrible  work  with  his  own  weapon.  Sir 
George  had  borrowed  a  mace  (that  might  well  have 
been  carried  in  the  Crusades)  from  one  of  the  escort, 
and  acted  and  felt,  to  use  his  own  subsequent  expres- 
sion, like  a  butcher  gone  mad.  The  saint,  with  reins 
loose,  and  steering  the  bay  with  his  knees,  used  both 
hands  to  the  Winchester,  and  did  not  miss  a  shot,  al- 
though he  opened  fire  thirty  yards  away  from  the 
line. 

But  Captain  Kettle,  who  rode  that  ramping  black 
stallion  as  a  sailor  rides,  kept  his  head  in  this  his 
first  cavalry  charge,  and  did  more  damage  than  any  of 
them.  He  was  conscious  enough  of  his  bad  horse- 
manship not  to  risk  fancy  shots.  He  chose  his  man 
with  deliberate  aim,  and  did  not  pull  trigger  till  his 
revolver's  muzzle  rested  on  the  victim's  clothes. 

Nothing  but  this  desperation  could  have  saved  him 
from  being  killed.  The  mongrel  crew  along  the  beach 
were  every  man  of  them  as  brave  as  he ;  but  when  they 
saw  his  pistol  muzzle  set  fire  to  jellab  after  jellab,  they 


042     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

called  one  to  another  that  Shaitan  rode  on  the  Sidi's 
bridle  hand,  and  that  it  was  time  to  be  gone. 

The  attackers  broke  through,  rallied,  and  charged 
back  again  toward  the  rising  dawn.  The  camels,  with 
legs  flying  to  all  the  compass  points,  sprawled  along  in 
their  midst,  and  the  deck-houses  on  their  backs 
lurched  and  pitched  like  mark  buoys  in  a  tideway. 
But  no  sturdy  wall  of  raiders  waited  for  them  this 
time.  They  drove  their  horses  through  the  skirts  of 
a  rout,  and  clubbed  and  stabbed  and  slashed  at  white- 
winged  fugitives. 

"Pull  up,"  bawled  Kettle,  "and  let  the  rest  go. 
Slow  down.  Sir  George.  Halt  there,  you  son-of-a- 
saint,  and  give  me  a  chance  with  this  devil-possessed 
black  horse  of  yours.  He's  worried  two  men  with 
his  teeth,  and  he'll  eat  you  next  if  you  don't  get  out 
of  range.  By  James !  do  you  spawn  of  the  mountains 
hear  me?  Halt!  Halt  where  you  are.  And  now 
wheel.  Wheel  back  to  the  lagoon,  or  I'll  turn  loose 
this  horse  at  you.  Sir  George,  I'm  the  last  man  to 
spoil  a  fight  when  one  offers,  but  we've  the  ladies  with 
us,  and  presently,  if  you  hammer  them  any  more,  these 
jokers  in  the  white  nightgowns  will  remember  they're 
quite  eight  to  one,  and  they'll  turn  and  eat  us  without 
salt.  Sir,  shake  yourself  together,  and  think  of  your 
sister,  and,  anyway,  give  me  that  damn  club.  Give  it 
to  me,  I  say  —  I'm  sorry  if  I've  hurt  your  wrist,  but 
you've  ofifered  obedience,  and  it's  my  habit  to  see  that 
orders  are  carried  out.  Saint,  I've  reloaded  my  gun, 
and  if  you  don't  whistle  your  men  off  riding  their 


A  CHARGE  OF  CAVALRY  343 

horses  over  those  fellows  on  the  ground,  by  the  living 
James!  I'll  empty  six  saddles." 

"  Perhaps  we've  done  enough,"  grasped  the  burly 
Sir  George. 

"  They've  put  up  a  good  fight,  sir,"  said  that  con- 
noisseur, Captain  Owen  Kettle,  "  and  they've  got  their 
gruel,  and  my  orders  are  that  the  thing  finishes  there. 
Away  we  go  for  the  beach  now,  and  get  the  ladies 
out  of  that  earthquake  they've  been  forced  to  ride  on 
this  last  half-hour.  You'll  please  to  remember  that 
they've  missed  all  the  fun  and  only  had  the  shaking, 
and  I'm  afraid  we  shall  find  them  in  baddish  preserva- 
tion." 


CHAPTER  XXV, 

SALVAGED 

T^AY  was  lit  by  this  time  and  the  chill  had  slipped 
■*^  away,  and  the  air  was  already  beginning  to 
warm  up  toward  that  baking  temperature  on  which 
the  edge  of  the  Sahara  rests  so  much  of  its  evil  repu- 
tation. 

The  battle  had  been  fought  in  a  valley  of  the  dunes, 
and  the  vanquished  tribesmen  had  scattered  away  in 
the  direction  of  their  villages,  north,  east,  and  south. 
To  the  west,  over  a  low  line  of  hummocks  lay  the 
lagoon. 

"  Shall  we  find  the  Wangaroo  still  there  ?  "  won- 
dered the  kaid. 

*'  Don't  know,"  said  Sir  George.  "  These  gentry 
may  have  captured  her,  or  at  least  driven  her  away 
to  sea." 

"  She'll  be  there  and  untaken,"  said  Captain  Kettle 
shortly.  "I  left  McTodd  in  charge,  sir,  and  though 
he  may  have  failings,  and  be  argumentative  when  he's 
near  drink,  when  it  comes  to  looking  after  the  interest 
of  the  owner  who  pays  him,  Mr.  McTodd  is  as  efficient 
as  the  king  of  England." 

But  in  spite  of  these  confident  words,  anxiety  pres- 
ently crept  into  Captain  Kettle's  eyes.     ".We  should 

344 


SALVAGED  345 

have  raised  her  mast  trucks  before  this  above  those 
sand-hills,"  he  told  himself.  And  presently,  when  he 
could  hold  in  his  patience  no  longer,  he  clapped  the 
sharp  heels  of  his  stirrup-irons  into  the  ribs  of  the 
black  stallion,  and  galloped  to  the  crest.  The  lagoon 
lay  clear  before  him,  with  the  spouting  reefs  and  islets 
at  its  farther  side.     The  anchorage  was  deserted. 

"  My  great  James ! "  muttered  Captain  Kettle, 
"  where's  my  ship,  and  what  do  I  do  next  ?  " 

But  even  as  he  stood  there,  a  stiff  little  mounted 
figure  standing  out  clearly  against  the  farther  dunes, 
he  had  been  seen  by  some  sharp  observer,  and  after  a 
preliminary  huskiness,  the  deep  boom  of  the  IVan- 
garoo's  enormous  siren  hummed  through  the  air,  away 
on  his  left  hand. 

He  turned  sharply.  Yes,  there  she  was,  the  little 
beauty,  down  at  the  other  end  of  the  lagoon,  close, 
in  fact,  to  the  Norman  Tozvers.  But  in  the  name  of 
wonder  what  was  this?  Foam  bubbled  from  her  tail 
and  lay  round  her  in  a  hoary  ring.  Her  engines 
were  running,  and  yet  she  did  not  appear  to  move. 
Aground?  No  chance  of  it.  He  had  sounded  every 
bit  of  the  lagoon  at  that  end,  and  was  prepared  to 
swear  before  a  Board  of  Trade  inquiry  that  she  had 
at  that  very  moment  ten  fathoms  of  water  under  her 
bottom. 

He  forced  the  black  horse  down  the  slope,  and 
then  galloped  south  along  the  hard  beach,  waving  the 
others  to  follow  him. 

Half  a  mile  farther  on,  when  he  had  got  the  steam- 


346     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

boats  clear  of  one  another,  he  saw  why  the  Wangaroo 
did  not  move  ahead.  She  was  tethered  by  a  heavy 
wire  hawser.  The  other  end  of  the  wire,  which  was 
as  taut  as  an  iron  bar,  led  in  through  one  of  the 
Norman  Towers'  hawse-pipes.  It  ^^"as  obvious  she 
was  trying  to  tow.  It  was  equally  ol^vious  she  could 
not  do  it,  and  Captain  Kettle  cursed  Mr.  Neil  Angus 
McTodd,  unqualified  second  engineer  and  acting-cap- 
tain of  the  ]]^angaroo,  with  maritime  point  and 
fluency. 

"  IMcTodd's  polished  his  old  coffee-mill  of  an  en- 
gine till  he  thinks  there's  no  limit  to  her  power,"  Ket- 
tle told  himself,  "  and  now  he's  trying  to  pull  a  steam- 
boat full  of  dead-weight,  and  anyway  six  times  our 
size,  through  what  practically  amounts  to  a  dock  wall." 

A  moment  later  he  pulled  up  sharply  and  took  a 
quick  cross-bearing  of  the  Norman  Tozve/s  foremast 
against  a  cleft  of  the  chocolate-colored  rock  behind. 
"  By  the  living  James,"  he  cried,  "  he's  budged  her. 
She's  moving  ahead." 

The  Berber  kaid  pulled  up  alongside  him.  "  I 
thought  you  and  McTodd  decided  that  the  local  raga- 
muffins had  built  that  ship  up  inside  a  coffer-dam  that 
"Weighed  about  a  million  tons  of  solid  stone?" 

"I  saw  the  stone  myself,"  said  Kettle  shortly,  and 
looked  at  his  watch.  "  It's  bang  on  the  top  of  high 
water  this  minute,  and  now  they've  got  a  move  on  her 
she's  coming  off  like  a  bar  pulled  through  a  keg  of 
tallow.  Look  at  those  links  of  cable  hopping  in 
through    her    port    hawse-pipe.     Mac's    laid    out    an 


SALVAGED  347 

anchor  ahead,  and  he's  heaving  on  that  as  well  as  with 
the  old  girl's  own  steam  on  her  own  windlass.  You 
can  see  the  leak  of  it  now  through  the  escape.  Great 
James!  why  can't  I  find  a  boat?  " 

But  the  engineer  in  charge  of  the  salvage  opera- 
tions was  not  the  man  to  break  off  just  then  for  the 
mere  pleasure  of  being  superseded  by  his  superior 
officer.  Mr.  McTodd  stood  on  the  forecastle  of  the 
Norman  Towers  enjoying  himself  hugely. 

He  was  wet  through  and  dripped  brine  as  he  stood; 
his  overalls  were  smeared  with  every  variety  of  sea 
impurity  from  black  grease  to  the  red  rust  of  iron. 
There  was  seaweed  in  his  beard  and  an  oozy  red  cut 
on  the  bridge  of  his  nose.  He  exuded  a  mixed  aroma 
of  whisky,  competency,  and  authority,  and  from 
Trethewy,  the  mate  on  the  Wangaroo's  upper  bridge, 
to  the  meanest  no-nation  deck-hand  awaiting  orders 
on  the  Norman  Tozvers,  all  within  ear-shot  were  ready 
to  jump  to  do  his  bidding. 

Inch  by  inch,  and  then  foot  by  foot,  the  Norman 
Towers  hove  up  to  her  anchor,  and  the  windlass  en- 
gines, which  had  strained  hard  to  make  a  quarter  of  a 
turn  at  a  time  under  an  extra  full  head  of  steam,  be- 
gan to  send  up  a  steady  rhythmical  clatter,  and  to 
make  the  deck  beneath  them  buckle  and  shake. 

"  Go  it,  old  girl,"  said  Mr.  McTodd.  "  Gosh,  but 
this  is  scraping  the  barnacles  finely  off  your  belly." 
He  raised  his  voice  to  a  throaty  bellow  and  hailed  a 
cluster  of  men  who  lay  behind  a  barricade  of  coal  bags 
on  the  poop :     "  Aft  there ;  are  you  keeping  a  bright 


348     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

lookout?  If  another  shot  comes  aboard  from  the 
shore  without  your  shooting  first,  I'll  baptize  some 
more  of  ye  with  a  three-quarter-inch  spanner.  Kindly 
remember  I've  no'  put  ye  there  just  for  decorative  pur- 
poses, ye  lop-eared  aliens.  D'ye  hear  me,  you 
Schwereinsen  ?  " 

*'  Aye,  aye,  saire." 

"  I  don't  know  who  it  was  that  was  playing  the 
devil's  delight  just  now  behind  those  sand-hills,"  con- 
tinued Mr.  McTodd,  this  time  to  the  undersized  fire- 
man who  was  attending  to  the  windlass  engines  beside 
him,  "  but  by  the  pleasure  somebody  seems  to  be  taking 
over  the  scrap,  it  seemed  vara  like  as  if  our  Old  Man 
had  scraped  clear,  and  was  coming  back  here  to  stir  up 
trouble.  Gosh !  I'd  give  a  thumb  to  think  yon  was 
true." 

"  There's  the  skipper,  sir,  just  rode  up  on  a  black 
'orse  to  the  top  of  that  sand-'ill.  Looks  to  me  by  the 
way  'e's  a-shakin'  'is  fist  'e's  letting  loose  a  mouthful 
of  language." 

"  Bite  off  your  tongue,  you  mutinous  son  of  a  White- 
chapel  tripe-hawker.  Man,  I  have  seen  creatures  more 
worthy  than  you  fair  smashed  to  a  jelly  for  speaking 
so  of  the  Lorrd's  anointed.  And  anyway,  abusing  the 
skipper's  an  amusement  I  resairve  for  mysel'.  Wav- 
ing, is  he?  I'll  let  him  wave  his  arrums  from  their 
sockets  and  his  whip-lash  of  a  tongue  from  its  roots 
before  I  pleasure  him  by  sending  a  boat  that'll  bring 
him  off  to  interfere  here.  By  gosh,  this  is  my  funeral, 
and  no  other  corrpse  need  apply." 


SALVAGED  349 

And  so,  like  another  commanding  officer  before 
him,  Mr.  N.  A.  McTodd  turned  a  blind  eye  to  all  shore 
signals  till  he  had  completed  the  work  he  had  set  his 
mind  on,  and  saw  the  Norman  Towers  hung  to  her 
anchor  with  clean  deep  water  all  round  her,  and  had 
cast  off  the  heavy  wire  towing-hawser  from  the  Waii- 
garoo,  and  bidden  Trethewy  drop  his  hook  alongside. 
But  when  all  this  was  completed  he  sent  off  a  boat, 
and  piously  anticipated  the  enjoyment  of  seeing  Kettle 
in  a  furious  rage  at  having  all  the  difficult  work  done 
for  him. 

But  that  small  mariner  read  the  scheme  of  Mr. 
McTodd's  ambitions  (as  he  and  others  were  rowed 
off),  and  with  an  effort  pulled  his  temper  into  hand, 
and  resolved  not  to  allow  himself  to  be  drawn  for  the 
Scot's  wicked  gratification. 

Instead  he  stretched  out  a  cordial  hand.  "  Mac," 
he  said,  "  it's  clever  of  you.  How  in  James  did  you 
manage  to  do  it?  " 

The  Northerner's  jaw  dropped.  He  was  losing  the 
sport  he  had  promised  himself.  "  It  looks  as  if  I'd 
gone  beyond  your  orders,"  he  said  pointedly. 

"  I  didn't  leave  you  behind  in  charge  because  you 
were  reliable,"  Kettle  told  him  sharply,  "  but  because 
you  were  the  best  I  had." 

"  Man,"  retorted  the  Scot,  "  I  kenned  fine  you  un- 
dervalued me,  and  it  is  just  that  knowledge  that's  im- 
pelled me  to  miracles.  Ye  saw  for  yourself  how  im- 
possible it  was  ever  to  get  this  rusted  old  cargo-box 
into  deep  watter  again,  and  here  you  now  see  it's  been 


350     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

done.  You,  and  the  British  Board  of  Trade,  and  a 
few  others,  can  never  be  convinced  of  my  qualifica- 
tions, and  I'm  put  to  this  perpetual  strain  of  perforrm- 
ing  miracles  just  for  the  sake  of  my  ordinary  profes- 
sional credit." 

"  You've  been  drinking  again,  among  other  things." 

"  And  for  why  not  ?  Drinking,  say  you  ?  Man,  I 
tell  you  the  Archbishop  of  York  who's  an  Aberdonian, 
yes,  or  even  the  moderator  of  Free  Kairk  of  Scotland, 
would  have  lapped  guid  whisky  if  he  had  had  it,  as 
a  counter-irritant  to  the  strain  I've  been  put  to.  As 
a  firrst  example :  how  many  of  those  ducks  you  left  in 
my  charge  do  ye  think  can  swim  ?  " 

"  I  never  took  the  census  of  them." 

"  Pairfectly.  Weel,  I  did.  It  seemed  (on  inquiry) 
there  were  three  who  said  they  could,  and  twenty- 
three  who  couldn't.  Man,  you'll  barely  believe  it,  but 
I've  taught  twenty-two." 

"  Now  look  here,  Mac,  pull  yourself  together  and 
tell  a  straight  tale.  Twenty-three  you  said  a  second 
before.  Which  is  it?  And  anyway,  what  has  swim- 
ming to  do  with  pulling  the  Towers  out  of  that 
bay?" 

"  Man,  dinna'  be  offensive.  Your  nationality  is 
against  you,  I  ken  fine,  but  fight  against  it,  man,  fight 
against  it."  Mr.  McTodd  shredded  tobacco  for  his 
pipe,  and  scoured  out  an  evil-smelling  dottle  into  his 
hand.  "  Twenty-three,  as  I  said,  I  tackled,  and 
twenty-two  I  taught.  The  odd  swimmer  got  mislaid, 
and  whether  the  sharks  got  him,  or  cramp,  or  whether 


SALVAGED  351 

he  started  to  swim  back  under  water  to  Cardiff  where 
he  came  from,  and  lost  his  course,  I  canna'  tell  you. 

"  Anyway,  I  was  minus  his  services,  and  for  that 
and  no  other  reason  I  mourned  his  memory.  But  for 
the  rest,  I  turned  them  into  mermaids,  and,  gosh! 
you  should  have  seen  some  of  them  strip.  They'd 
have  made  a  sculptor  faint.  We  got  a  fire  in  the 
donkey  boiler  on  the  Tozvers,  and  persuaded  her  num- 
ber one  winch  to  turn,  and  rigged  a  derrick.  They'd 
a  big  iron  tip-bucket  in  number  three  hold  that  they'd 
used  for  shipping  that  copper  ore,  and  that  with  holes 
punched  in  was  just  the  implement  I  wanted.  Ye  see 
the  game  ?  " 

"  Go  on." 

"  I'll  trouble  you  for  a  match." 

"  Here's  my  last.     For  the  lord's  sake,  go  on." 

"  In  due  time,"  said  the  engineer,  lighting  his  pipe, 
and  speaking  between  sucks.  "  We  lowered  the 
bucket  on  to  the  top  of  the  dam,  and  then  divers  had 
to  fill  it  by  hand  with  stones.  I  led  them.  Man,  I 
lived  under  water  like  the  King  Neptune  they  tell  of 
in  the  wind-jammer  days,  and  those  of  the  hands 
that  didn't  dive  well  or  stay  down  the  prescribed 
time,  I  beat  over  the  head  with  rocks  away  down  there 
tinder  the  surface  of  the  sea.  And  you,  who  have 
been  enjoying  yourself  on  a  circular  tour  round  all 
the  fashionable  sights  of  the  neighborhood,  come 
back  and  throw  hints  about  the  whisky! 

"  Man,  in  your  ear,  it's  vara  humorous ;  it  was  no' 
your  whisky  at  all,  or  the  ship's.     It  was  from  the 


352     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

owner's  private  sea  store  that  he  went  away  too  rattled 
to  leave  locked.  I  ask  you,  how's  that  for  humor  ?  " 
Sir  George  Chesterman  had  come  into  the  chart 
house  in  time  to  hear  this  last.  He  laughed  cheer- 
fully. "That's  all  right,  Mr.  McTodd.  The  neces- 
sity of  commandeering  medical  comforts  in  time  of 
stress  is  recognized  by  act  of  parliament.  Then  did 
you  and  that  splendid  crew  pull  down  that  enormous 
embankment  by  hand,  and  in  deep  water  ?  " 

"  Our  policy,"  said  the  engineer,  emphasizing  his 
point  with  an  explanatory  pipe-stem,  "  was  to  cut  a 
gap  big  enough  for  the  steamboat  to  pass  through  at 
the  top  of  flood.  We'd  no  ambition,  ye'll  under- 
stand, for  leaving  pairmanent  structural  improvements 
to  this  part  of  Africa,  and  when  we'd  a  bucketful  of 
the  stone  hoisted  above  water  level,  we  hooked  it  on 
to  another  derrick  chain  aft  and  dumped  it  over  the 
stern.  That  was  where  trouble  began  with  the  na- 
tives. They  seemed  to  object  to  our  spoiling  the 
contours  of  their  dock," 

"  Have  they  been  sniping  you  all  along?" 
"If  the  money  those  misguided  heathen  wasted  on 
powder  and  slugs  had  been  spent  on  whisky,  and  dis- 
tributed in  Glasgow,  half  of  the  second  city  in  the 
empire  would  have  been  happy  for  a  day.  And  their 
firing,  thanks  to  my  ingenuity,  was  all  wasted.  It 
was  vara  humorous  to  see  the  way  they  went  on  bom- 
barding the  coal  bags  I  erected  to  shelter  the  men. 
We  talked  back  at  them,  too,  in  a  language  they  could 
understand. 


SALVAGED  353 

"  I  let  the  watch  on  deck  —  I  mean  those  that 
weren't  engaged  for  the  moment  on  the  diving  —  take 
their  rifles  and  loose  off  cartridges  from  behind  coal 
bags.  I  hear  that  some  of  them  quite  pride  them- 
selves on  being  marksmen,  and  that  bald-headed  old 
pirate,  with  experience  in  the  China  seas,  says  he's  a 
further  bag  of  thirteen  to  his  discredit.  They  shot  at 
every  native  they  could  see.  Man,  its  laughable  to 
think  they  bombarded  the  saint's  own  messengers,  and 
nearly  lost  us  yon  cargo  of  gold." 

"  Lost  which  ? "  Captain  Kettle  and  Sir  George 
Chesterman  bounced  in  their  chairs  and  put  the  ques- 
tion simultaneously. 

"  You  needna'  shout.  Your  nerves  are  suffering 
from  drought,  and  as  an  expert  I  should  recommend 
a  lubricant.  The  saint  sent  the  gold  to  foot  his  bill 
all  right,  and  there  was  a  message  which  said  there 
was  no  hurry  about  the  rifles,  as  you'd  all  be  staying 
with  him  for  some  time." 

Sir  George  and  Captain  Kettle  glanced  at  one  an- 
other. The  same  thought  flashed  across  each  of  them. 
Had  Sidi  Mohammed  Bergash  an  idea  that  with  the 
gold  once  on  board,  the  Wangaroo  would  vanish  forth- 
with from  his  calculations?  It  was  little  he  knew 
McTodd. 

"  I  offered  the  messengers  some  slight  refresh- 
ment," said  the  engineer,  "  and  as  they  wouldna'  take 
it  owing  to  releegious  scruples,  I  just  swallowed  it 
mysel'  to  prove  to  them  the  superiority  of  my  own 
Northern  creed,  and  then  I  locked  up  the  gold  in  a 


354     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

state-room,  and  got  on  with  my  employment.  But  I'd 
an  idea  there  might  be  mischief  in  the  background,  so  I 
gave  the  old  chief  a  job.  He's  a  very  intelligent  man, 
the  chief  engineer  of  the  Wangaroo,  if  he's  provided 
with  ideas,  and  a  working  drawing,  and  has  tools  put 
into  his  hands  just  as  they  are  required." 

"  What  on  earth  are  you  maundering  about 
now  ?  " 

"  You  ken  yon  brass  signal-gun  on  the  old  Towers 
they  bombarded  us  with  as  we  came  into  the  lagoon?  " 

"  Yes,  a  useless  toy." 

"  Aye,  there  speaks  your  layman's  ignorance.  Man, 
I  gave  our  chief  the  idea  —  it  was  a  brilliant  little 
thing  of  my  own,  but  I'll  not  waste  the  details  on  your 
unmechanical  intelligence  —  and  he  put  a  rifling  into 
the  barrel,  and  turned  up  some  scrap  brass  we  had  into 
shells,  and  fitted  them  with  studs  to  correspond  with 
the  rifling.  For  want  of  a  better  explosive  we  filled 
the  shells  with  water,  and  I  tell  you  a  fine  din  they 
made  when  they  burst.  She'll  carry  three-quarters  of 
a  mile,  will  that  twopenny  brass  cannon  in  her  new 
state,  and  one  shell  she  threw  landed  among  a  com- 
mittee meeting  of  true  believers  and  sent  ten  of  them 
there  and  then  to  the  place  where  they  fry  gratis.  I 
watched  it  myself  with  the  bridge  binoculars.  Gosh, 
you  should  have  seen  the  old  chief.  He'd  let  no 
one  sairve  the  gun  but  himself.  You  may  call  him 
cynical,  you  may  know  him  to  be  sarcastic,  but  my 
idea  is  that  the  worrld  has  mislaid  in  him  a  natural 
artilleryman." 


SALVAGED  355 

The  carpenter  rapped  smartly  at  the  door,  opened 
it,  and  waited  to  be  spoken  to. 

"  Yes  ?  "  said  Captain  Kettle. 

"  I've  sounded  the  Towers  in  every  hold,  sir.  She's 
tight  everywhere.  So  are  all  the  compartments  of 
the  double  bottom  that  I  could  get  at." 

"  Very  good,"  said  Kettle,  and  the  carpenter  went 
out.     "And  what's  your  idea  of  her  engines,  Mac?" 

"  Weel,  I  have  na'  had  time  to  take  a  turn  out  of 
them,  and  there's  no  denying  that  outwardly  they're 
disgraceful.  Any  engines  with  sea  water  on  them 
and  three  months'  neglect  would  be  that.  But  with 
three  days'  labor,  and  some  good  nursing,  I  don't  see 
they  would  be  any  worrse  than  many  of  the  marine 
engines  that  are  now  earning  deevidends  all  over  the 
seas.  Gosh!  there's  that  noisy-minded  steward  ring- 
ing the  thing  he  calls  a  gong  for  supper.  It  would 
mean  a  bath  at  least  for  me  if  I  was  to  come  down,  so 
with  leave  I'll  stay  in  comfort  as  I  am,  and  have  a 
snack  on  deck.  And  so.  Captain,  as  I  see  you're 
aching  to  beautify  yourself,  I'll  leave  ye.  Aboot  that 
bottle  of  brilliantine  I  begged  the  loan  of  — " 

"  I  have  none,"  snapped  Kettle. 

"  Weel,"  drawled  the  Scot,  "  I've  no'  used  the  half 
of  it,"  and  muttering  to  himself  "  vara  humorous," 
he  pulled  himself  up  and  rolled  out  of  the  chart  house. 

"  McTodd's  a  great  taste  for  pulling  your  leg,"  said 
Sir  George,  as  he  followed  more  slowly. 

"  At  sea,"  retorted  Captain  Kettle  sharply,  "  I  don't 
appreciate  it.     My  idea  is,  sir,  that  the  engine-room 


356     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

should  always  give  the  deck  officers  proper  respect. 
And  by  James,  sir,  if  they  don't  know  how,  I'm  the 
man  to  teach  them." 

Captain  Owen  Kettle  ripped  off  jellab  and  head-robe 
and  dropped  them  on  the  floor  with  a  gesture  of  dis- 
gust. It  is  also  on  record  that,  punctual  man  though 
he  is  known  to  be,  he  was  twenty  minutes  late  when 
he  sat  down  that  night  at  the  head  of  the  table  before 
the  plate  of  tepid  soup  which  the  anxious  steward 
had  saved  for  him.  But  he  was  once  more  his  spick- 
and-span  self,  and  obviously  pleased  with  the  universe. 

They  had  their  after-dinner  coffee  out  on  deck  un- 
der the  wonderful  African  stars,  and  Captain  Kettle 
found  himself  seated  apart  from  the  other  men,  but 
near  Miss  Violet  Chesterman  by  that  lady's  skilful 
management.  Her  face  was  white  and  rather  drawn, 
and  there  were  heavy  shadows  under  her  eyes,  all 
things  that  were  easily  accounted  for  by  the  recent 
distressing  experiences  she  had  undergone.  But  there 
was  a  brightness  about  her  talk  which  showed  that  a 
high  spirit  still  ran  within  her,  and  there  was  an  in- 
definable something  in  her  attitude  that  made  the  little 
sailor  feel  vaguely  restive  and  uneasy. 

She  talked  composedly  over  recent  events  —  her 
own  departure  from  the  IVangaroo,  which  she  frankly 
stigmatized  as  foolish,  the  arrival  at  the  fortress,  and 
her  unexpected  treatment  there. 

"  I   believe   Sidi   Bergash   really  believed   I   would 
marry  him,  though  to  give  him  his  due  he  never  did  • 
put  it  in  so  many  words.     But  there  is  no  doubt  that 


SALVAGED  357 

both  my  brother  and  I  were  in  extreme  danger,  and 
the  way  you  got  us  out  of  his  chitches  is  a  thing  that 
never  can  be  properly  rewarded."  .  .  .  And  she 
said  more,  much  more,  in  the  same  strain.  It  was 
flattering,  it  was  fluent,  yet  somehow  without  being 
able  to  find  out  any  definite  cause  of  offense,  Kettle 
found  that  it  all  in  a  vague  way  jarred  on  him.  Up 
till  now  he  had  always  enjoyed  and,  indeed,  looked 
forward  to  Miss  Chesterman's  conversation,  as  of 
course  she  meant  he  should;  and  to-night's  change 
disquieted  him.  For  half  an  hour  he  listened  there 
in  the  warm  night  under  those  southern  stars  without 
being  able  to  define  even  to  himself  the  subtle  change 
that  had  come  over  her  manner,  but  at  last  with  a  flash 
it  dawned  on  him.  There  was  a  taint  of  patronage 
over  this  talk  to-night.  It  was  intended  that  he 
should  grasp  that  indiscretions  in  the  past  were  in- 
discretions, and  that  she  was  the  great  lady,  and  that 
he  was  the  hired  mariner. 

All  Captain  Kettle's  rebellious  nature  leaped  into 
arms  at  the  discovery  —  and  as  promptly  became  limp 
and  submissive.  She  had  made  a  mistake;  he  had 
made  a  mistake;  and  if  this  was  her  way  of  putting 
things  straight,  he  ought  not  to  be  the  one  to  com- 
plain. 

"  And  now,"  said  she,  "  I  must  speak  to  you  on  a 
more  intimate  matter,  and  that  is  about  your  attach- 
ment to  my  mai  —  to  Emily.  My  eyes  have  told  me 
what  your  feelings  are  in  the  matter,  and  both  my 
brother  and  I  wish  to  see  you  comfortably  settled 


35.8     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

down.  So  we  have  thought  out  what  seems  to  us  a 
suitable  wedding  present,  and  my  brother  —  ah,  here's 
Rex,  and  there  he  is.     George !  " 

"Yes,  old  girl.  Having  a  talk  with  the  skipper?, 
Did  you  tell  him  our  little  scheme  ?  " 

"  I  left  it  to  you." 

"  Well,  Captain,  it's  this.  In  a  moment  of  stress  I 
told  you  I'd  give  everything  I  possessed  in  the  world 
to  be  carried  safely  back  on  board  here,  and  as  you're 
the  man  who's  done  the  magic  trick,  you  are  naturally 
entitled  to  the  pay.  Of  course  when  it  comes  to  the 
point  I'm  going  to  tell  you  I  didn't  really  mean  what 
I  said,  and  all  the  rest  of  it,  and  so  will  you  kindly 
waive  the  whole  claim,  and  accept  the  Norman  Towers^ 
as  she  stands,  in  settlement  ?  " 

Captain  Kettle  swallowed  hard.  "  I  couldn't,  sir, 
I  really  couldn't.  I  do  appreciate  your  splendid  gen- 
erosity, but  this  is  beyond  all  reason.  Eight  and  a 
half  per  cent,  is  what  you  promised  me  and  that  I'll 
take  in  all  gratitude.  But  the  whole;  I  couldn't. 
Why,  ship  and  cargo  together  are  worth  two  hundred 
thousand  pounds." 

The  big  man  put  his  hands  in  the  pockets  of  his 
loose  shooting-coat,  and  made  a  mocking  bow.  The 
big  retriever  opened  a  laughing  mouth.  "  If  I  value; 
my  only  sister  at  one  hundred  fifty  thousand  pounds, 
which  really  seems  an  impertinently  low  figure,  that 
only  leaves  fifty  thousand  pounds  for  myself,  and  In 
justice  to  my  constituents  I  couldn't  put  it  at  less. 
But,  Skipper,  I  prefer  not  to  look  on  It  In  that  light 


SALVAGED  359 

I  owe  you  a  tremendous  debt  of  gratitude  that  I  can 
never  repay.  You  are,  I  trust,  going  to  marry  Miss 
Dubbs,  who  is  a  girl  I  have  a  great  hking  for,  and  it 
will  give  me  real  pleasure  if  you  will  accept  from  my 
sister  and  myself  a  wedding  present  which  will,  we 
believe,  provide  for  you  comfortably.  You'll  find 
papers  in  this  envelope  which  will  form  an  efficient 
transfer  of  the  steamer  from  myself  as  full  owner  to 
you.  .  .  .  And  now,  Violet,  you're  dead  tired, 
and  so  am  I.  You'd  much  better  go  below  and  turn 
in.  That's  what  I  am  going  to  do  myself.  We'll  see 
Captain  Kettle  at  breakfast  to-morrow  morning." 

An  hour  later  Mr.  Forster,  the  elderly  second  mate, 
knocked  at  the  chart-house  door,  opened,  and  went  in. 
He  stood  for  a  moment  sniffing  noisily  at  a  smell  of 
frangipani,  and  then  looked  heavily  round  the  angle 
of  the  door.  On  the  plush  settee  sat  Captain  Kettle 
and  Miss  Dubbs,  her  arm  round  his  neck,  his  left  arm 
round  her  trim  waist,  their  right  hands  clasped,  their 
lips  together. 

The  second  mate  was  a  stupid  man,  and  prided  him- 
self on  his  stupidity.  "  Captain,"  he  said,  "  I've  td 
report  — " 

"  Get  out." 

"  To  —  to  report  that  — " 

"  Get  to  blazes  out  of  this,  you  blundering  elephant, 
or  I'll  throw  you  into  the  ditch.  What  in  thunder  do 
you  mean  coming  into  my  room  unasked?  Get  out, 
you  armor-plated  idiot,  and  shut  the  door." 


36o     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

Mr.  Forster  retreated  slowly  and  heavily,  shut  the 
solid  teak  door  to  within  five  inches  of  the  jamb,  and 
fastened  it  there  on  the  hook.  Through  the  gap  he 
stolidly  completed  his  message.  "  There's  a  ship's 
life-boat  rowing  in  here  from  the  entrance  of  the 
lagoon.  She's  manned  by  white  men.  The  moon- 
light shows  them  clearly." 

"Callers  at  this  time  of  night?"  said  Captain  Ket- 
tle lightly,  but  within  him  he  was  conscious  of  a  queer 
sinking  feeling,  and,  as  he  confessed  afterward,  a 
premonition  of  disaster.  But  to  his  officer  he  added 
in  his  usual  brisk  tones,  "  Very  good.  You  needn't 
report  again  unless  they  seem  to  want  help,  or  till 
they  come  up  alongside.  Keep  a  bright  lookout. 
And  please  remember  I'm  busy,  and  do  not  wish  to 
be  disturbed  unless  on  ship's  business." 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE   SURVIVING   FARNISH 

iC'VXTKL'L  have  to  be  married  in  the  Church  of 
'  ^  England,"  said  the  Httle  sailor,  "  because 
that's  the  tightest  way  of  getting  the  splice  made,  but 
after  you're  Mrs.  Kettle,  I  take  it  there'll  be  no  more 
church  for  us.  Miss  Dubbs,  dear." 

"  I  suppose  not,  Captain  darling,  if  you  wish  it," 
said  that  fine  young  woman  rather  wistfully.  "But 
with  this  splendid  fortune  you've  got,  we  could  afford 
it,  and  there's  no  doubt  about  where  the  best  people 
go  to." 

Captain  Kettle  went  on,  with  the  bright  fixed  eye  of 
a  man  who  sees  the  dearest  project  of  his  life  within 
reach.  "  I  was  brought  up  part  Bible  Christian,  and 
part  Methodist  New  Connection.  I've  had  the  ad- 
vantage also  of  trying  the  Wesleyans,  the  Spiritual- 
ists, and  the  Plymouth  Brethren,  and  I've  seen  good 
points  in  all  of  them.  You  hear  that  grand  instru- 
ment the  harmonium  in  all  their  chapels,  and  there's 
no  doubt  their  people  do  stick  together.  But  be- 
tween ourselves  they  all  seem  to  me,  when  you  come 
to  analyze  them,  to  lack  what  I  might  call  '  snap  ',  and 
they're  certainly  short  on  poetry.  Now  I  believe  that 
you  and  I,  Miss  Dubbs,  dear,  when  you  are  Mrs.  Ket- 

361, 


362     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

tie,  can  run  a  brand-new  religion  of  our  own,  and 
derive  much  benefit.  I  don't  believe  (as  many  do) 
in  starting  In  a  seaport  town,  and  getting  big  con- 
gregations straight  away.  I  know  you  can  do  that. 
A  fool  of  a  sailor  (when  he's  ashore)  will  go  and 
listen  to  any  old  tale,  especially  if  it's  set  to  a  hymn 
tune.  My  idea  is  to  set  up  in  a  country  place,  and 
the  lonelier  and  more  poetical,  the  better.  I  want 
poetry  in  mine,  and  hills,  and  rocks,  and  the  blue 
sky  over  all,  and  the  tinkle  of  a  river  flowing  fast. 
[You've  never  been  in  Wharf edale,  dear;  you  told  me 
jso.  But  I  was  there  once  for  a  week-end,  and  I 
thought  that  if  ever  I'd  the  chance  I'd  buy  a  farm 
there  that  I  know  of,  and  rent  a  small  chapel  that  is 
to  let  near  it.  You  don't  know  what  poetry  there 
is  in  sheep  and  cows  till  you've  lived  near  them." 

"  No,  dear,  but  I  could  learn,  though  privately  I 
believe  I  should  do  best  with  hens.  But  I  think  the 
chapel's  a  splendid  idea.  Besides,  that  sort  of  thing 
has  always  what  I  call  more  permanent  interest  in  it 
than  just  gadding  about  to  music-halls,  which  is  what 
some  girls  like.  It  gives  you  a  position  at  once,  too, 
when  you're  known  to  be  leader  of  the  chapel  set." 

"  It  would  be  a  splendid  thing  to  be  head  of  a  reli- 
gion of  our  own  that  was  recognized  by  Whitaker's 
Almanack  and  all  the  great  authorities.  *  Particular 
Methodists ',  I  think,  could  be  the  name.  *  Wharfe- 
dale  Particular  Methodists ',  perhaps,  to  distinguish 
it  from  imitations.  And  I  wouldn't  take  any  convert 
that  offered,  either.     I'd  make  it  select  —  and  strict. 


THE  SURVIVING  FARNISH  363 

.  .  .  And  with  money  to  back  me  up,  unlimited 
money,  as  I  suppose  it  will  be  when  that  copper  ore's 
realized  on,  I  could  afford  to  run  missionaries  and 
send  them  out  to  the  uttermost  of  the  heathen  whites 
—  to  Swansea,  and  to  New  York,  to  Cardiff,  to 
Chicago  and  Glasgow  even,  and  perhaps  Manchester 
and  New  Orleans.  .  .  .  Yes,  what  is  it?  Come 
in." 

The  heavy  hand  of  the  old  second  mate  was  beat- 
ing against  the  door  panel.  *'  It's  that  boat.  She's 
alongside,  and  at  the  foot  of  the  ladder.  There's  a 
party  steering  that  looks  like  Noah,  and  as  far  as  I  can 
understand  his  jibber,  he  says  the  Nortnan  Towers  is 
his.  Am  I  to  let  him  and  his  people  on  deck? 
They're  the  raggedest  looking  crew  of  beach-combers 
I  ever  saw  in  all  my  going  a-fishing.  There's  one  of 
them  seems  to  have  gone  clear  loony.  He's  playing 
on  the  penny  whistle.  Spanish  Ladies  the  tune  is. 
He  looks  as  pleased  as  if  it  was  Saturday  night  and 
he  was  sitting  on  his  own  forecastle  head." 

Captain  Kettle  sighed  heavily.  "  Miss  Dubbs, 
dear,  I've  a  bad  feeling  we've  made  those  plans  too 
soon." 

"  So  have  I.  I  feel  as  if  pa,  or  an  angel  or  some- 
body has  only  to  utter  a  spell  like  '  Time,  gentlemen, 
please,'  and  we'd  all  wake  up,  and  the  money  would 
be  back  in  Sir  George's  pocket  where  it  rightly  be- 
longs." She  pressed  the  little  sailor  tightly  to  her 
ample  bosom.  "  But  sleeping  or  waking  I've  got  you. 
You're  real." 


364     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

"  I  hope  so,"  said  Kettle  miserably.  "  And  now, 
my  dear,  if  you'll  excuse  me,  I  must  go." 

Already  the  boat's  crew  had  shipped  their  oars  and 
made  fast  their  painter,  and  the  helmsman,  a  blowsy 
old  man  with  untrimmed  hair  and  burst  carpet  slip- 
pers had  swung  himself  heavily  on  the  ladder,  and 
was  plodding  up  the  side.  His  shoulders  were 
humped  with  failure.  The  young  successful  ship- 
master met  him  at  the  head  of  the  gangway. 

"  Come  on  board,  my  man,  and  let's  see  what  we 
can  do  for  you.  I  suppose  it  goes  without  saying 
you've  met  misfortune." 

"  Aye,  you  may  call  it  that,  Mr.  Kettle,  me  man,  or 
beg  pardon.  Captain  Kettle  as  I  see  you  are  now  by  the 
stripes  on  your  cuff.  Terrible  smart  fellows  for  uni- 
form, all  you  young  officers  nowadays." 

"Who  are  you?  By  James,  if  poor  old  Captain 
Famish  weren't  drowned  and  dead,  I  should  say  — 
Here,  man,  just  step  over  into  the  light." 

The  new-comer  dried  moist  eyes  with  the  back  of 
his  hand  and  laughed  wearily.  "It's  a  great  mis- 
take a  man  not  being  drowned  when  drowned  he's  re- 
ported to  be.  We've  found  that  half  a  score  of  times 
when  we've  put  in  at  places  where  there  was  a  consul 
and  tried  to  raise  a  loan  to  victual  the  boat.  '  I  want 
to  draw  on  my  owners  for  a  pound,'  I'd  say,  '  to  buy 
biscuit  and  a  can  of  beef,'  I'd  tell  him,  and  the  consul 
would  prove  to  me  from  Lloyds'  reports  that  old 
Captain  Saturday  Famish  was  drowned  along  with 
all  hands  that  sailed  on  the  Norman  Towers,  and  then 


THE  SURVIVING  FARNISH  365 

he'd  pump  out  unpleasant  talk  about  swindlers  and 
confidence  men  before  all  the  loafers  in  the  office  till 
I'd  be  fit  to  die  of  shame.  Oh,  I  tell  you,  Captain 
Kettle,  me  man,  the  life  of  a  shipmaster  when  he's 
alive  is  a  dog's  life,  but  when  he's  officially  supposed 
to  be  dead  (as  you  may  be  some  day)  it's  plain  hell." 

Captain  Kettle's  mind  flashed  across  to  that  com- 
fortable woman  in  the  bursting  satins  who  lived  in 
Merseyside  Terrace,  Birkenhead.  "And  you've 
never  reported  that  you  were  alive  ?  " 

"  I  never  had  the  heart  to  say  the  word,  or  a  postage 
stamp  to  send  it  with." 

"  Then  mother  will  have  drawn  your  insurance  ?  " 

"  There  is  none,  Owen,  me  man.  There's  not  a 
penny  to  draw.  I  got  a  bit  irregular  about  my  pay- 
ments, being  forgetful,  owing  to  attacks  of  malaria, 
and  the  insurance  has  lapsed.  It'll  have  been  work- 
house for  the  old  woman  and  the  girls,  unless  she's 
got  a  bit  of  washing,  or  unless  the  firm's  done  some- 
thing for  them,  which  isn't  likely."  He  rubbed  his 
sea-chapped  hands  together,  and  sniffed  hungrily. 
"  There's  a  rare  tasty  smell  coming  from  below  some- 
where. Must  be  cooky's  putting  up  a  bit  of  a  snack 
for  the  steward  and  himself  before  they  turn  in. 
D'you  know,  Owen,  me  man,  an  onion's  a  fruit  I 
haven't  touched  for  six  months,  and  for  that  matter 
I  haven't  seen  meat  half  a  dozen  times." 

"  Come  away  below.  Captain.  Mr.  Forster,  send 
the  boat's  crew  forward,  and  see  them  well  attended 
to  and  fed,  and  serve  them  out  a  good  stiff  tot  of 


366     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

grog.  Come  away,  below,  Captain,  at  once.  This 
lady  is  Miss  Dubbs." 

"  You  must  pardon  me,  miss,"  said  the  old  man, 
"  for  being  so  upset  at  the  idea  of  grub,  but  you  see 
Chips  —  my  carpenter,  I  should  say  —  who  was  in 
the  boat  with  me,  was  a  heavy  eater,  and  he  pro- 
vided the  music,  and  it  was  the  music  alone  that 
kept  the  men  from  turning  down  the  job,  and  stepping 
ashore  and  staying  there  whenever  they  got  the 
chance.  The  captain  here,  who's  a  musician  him- 
self, will  tell  you  what  Chips  could  do  with  the  penny 
whistle." 

"  He  could  play,"  said  the  expert,  "  I'll  admit  that." 

"  He  reminded  me  of  that  party  in  the  poem  that 
I've  seen  pictures  of,  who  played  the  penny  whistle 
so  well  that  he  lured  away  the  rats  from  a  whole 
town  full  of  fat  old  fellows  who  at  that  time  were 
seeing  them.  Lord,  Captain,  me  man,  fancy  getting 
a  knife  and  fork  in  one's  fists,  and  sitting  down  be- 
fore a  plate  on  a  table-cloth.  No,  Steward,  don't  give 
me  beef.  I've  not  got  my  teeth  on  me  this  evening. 
Yes,  some  of  that  salmon.  You've  no  idea  how  I've 
thirsted  and  hungered  after  some  nice  tinned  salmon, 
miss,  since  I've  been  threshing  about  in  that  mur- 
dering life-boat.  To  my  mind  there's  nothing  so 
tasty  as  tinned  salmon,  unless  perhaps  it's  finnan  had- 
die  if  you  put  enough  vinegar  on  it  just  to  damp  the 
microbes." 

The  shaggy  man  sat  at  the  end  of  the  saloon  table 


THE  SURVIVING  FARNISH  367 

eating  steadily,  eating  as  man  only  can  eat  after  he 
has  lived  for  months  on  the  edge  of  starvation,  and 
Miss  Diibbs  and  Captain  Kettle  leaned  elbows  on  the 
table  on  either  side  of  him,  and  stared  gloomily  at 
one  another  and  at  him.  Conversation  came  dis- 
jointedly,  and  between  mouth  fills. 

It  appeared  that  when  cargo  shifted  in  the  gale  six 
months  ago,  and  the  Norman  Toivers  lay  helpless  on 
her  beam  ends  with  the  wind  howling  over  her.  Cap- 
tain Farnish  decided  that  she  would  sink,  but  made 
up  his  mind  to  go  down  with  her  after  the  manner 
approved  by  his  tribe.  He  was  "  old  and  useless  ". 
He  would  "  never  get  another  ship  ".  He  would  be 
"  far  better  off  comfortably  drowned  ".  There  were 
institutions  which  "  would  help  the  widow  of  a  ship- 
master lost  at  sea,"  while  "  no  institution  on  earth 
except  the  workhouse  would  assist  the  wife  of  a  dis- 
rated, out-of-work  sea-captain."  But  certain  of  the 
hands  impelled  thereto  by  the  musically-minded  car- 
penter lugged  him  with  them  into  the  boat  and  once 
there  his  old  trick  of  seamanship  saved  the  lot  of 
them. — "  We  old  shellbacks  can  handle  open  boats 
in  heavy  weather  in  a  way  that  would  surprise  you 
brass-bound  swells  of  the  newer  school,  Owen,  me 
man." — They,  too,  saw  the  Norman  Toivers  instead 
of  turning  turtle,  shake  her  cargo  amidships  again, 
and  blow  off  before  the  gale,  and  Farnish  tried  des- 
perately to  follow,  but  lost  her  in  the  driving  sea 
smpke.     But  he  was  then  and  later  bitten  with  the 


368     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

theory  that  she  was  either  afloat  somewhere,  blowing 
about  the  seas,  or  neatly  ashore  and  offering  her  cargo 
for  salvage. 

Thereafter  his  wanderings  were  worthy  of  Homeric 
verse.  He  was  old,  he  was  not  too  competent,  he  had 
no  particular  charm  that  I  ever  saw  to  attract  men  to 
him.  He  had  neither  money  nor  credit  with  which 
to  buy  provisions,  and  on  the  rare  occasions  when  he 
went  ashore  —  in  Las  Palmas,  at  Mogador,  at  Bathurst, 
and  in  the  Cape  Verdes  —  he  was  received  with  de- 
rision and  insult.  It  seems  they  lived  for  the  most 
part  on  fish  that  they  caught  themselves  when  in- 
shore and  sun-dried  as  best  they  could  for  the  blue- 
water  sections  of  their  cruise.  As  regards  water, 
they  risked  their  lives  a  score  of  times  in  running 
the  crazy  boat  through  the  surf  when  mad  with 
thirst  to  fill  her  breakers. 

Why  the  crew  stuck  by  him  is  one  of  those  things 
that  seem  to  be  in  the  teeth  of  all  reason.  His  one 
explanation  that  they  stayed  for  the  mere  pleasure  of 
hearing  the  carpenter  toot  on  the  penny  whistle  is 
ridiculous,  but  frankly  I  have  nothing  much  better  to 
offer.  There  was  neither  gain,  pleasure,  nor  advance- 
ment to  dangle  in  front  of  the  crew  by  way  of  lure, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was  very  certain  starva- 
tion, hardship  and  danger  to  be  earned  in  plenty. 
One  can  only  conclude  that  for  some  obscure  reason 
they  must  have  loved  the  old  man,  and  for  that  and 
no  other  possible  cause  they  stuck  to  him. 

It  must  have  been  the  most  hopeless  kind  of  chase. 


THE  SURVIVING  FARNISH  369 

He  was  ignorant  about  the  more  modern  niceties  of 
currents,  unsound  on  his  trade-winds,  hopelessly  out 
of  date  on  the  theory  of  storms.  His  dull  rule  of 
thumb  science  could  not  even  form  a  theory  as  to 
where  they  had  drifted  to.  But  from  some  obscure 
pricking  of  the  thumbs  he  had  faith  that  she  was 
either  afloat,  or  neatly  cast  ashore,  but,  at  any  rate, 
waiting  for  him. 

"  I  knew  I  should  hit  upon  the  old  girl  at  last  if 
only  I  could  induce  the  hands  to  keep  on  long  enough," 
said  Captain  Saturday  Famish.  "  Did  you  happen 
to  find  my  old  pipe  in  the  chart  house  by  any  chance, 
or  had  the  niggers  scoffed  it  ?  Chips  lugged  me  away 
in  such  a  hurry  I  hadn't  time  to  slip  it  into  my  pocket. 
I  should  hate  to  lose  that  pipe.  It's  the  one  mother 
gave  me  the  year  I  earned  all  my  bonus." 

"  I  have  it  in  my  own  chart-room,  on  top.  There 
was  mother's  photo,  too.     I  took  that  also." 

Captain  Kettle  swallowed  hard.  Mention  of  that 
unclean  meerschaum  always  upset  him. 

"  You're  a  good  lad,  Owen,  me  man,  and  I'm  glad 
it's  you  that's  met  with  luck.  iYou're  young,  and 
you've  all  the  world  before  you,  and  now  you  needn't 
work.  I'm  old,  and  I'm  out  of  date,  and  nobody 
wants  me.  Eh,  well,  I  wonder  when  I  shall  eat 
onions  and  tinned  salmon  again?     Never,  probably." 

"To-morrow,  if  you  like,"  said  Captain  Kettle. 

"  That's  very  good  of  you,  Owen,  me  man.  I  sup- 
pose you'll  give  me  a  passage  home.  You'll  find  I'll 
not  intrude.     I  am  real  glad  that  it's  you  that's  picked 


370     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

up  the  old  Towers,  and  made  a  fortune  out  of  her, 
and  —  and  — " 

"And  ruined  you." 

"  Well,  you  didn't  set  out  to  do  It,  and  don't  think 
I  bear  you  malice,  though  if  it  had  been  any  one  else 
I  should  have  been  fit  to  tear  his  throat  out.  It's  not 
for  myself  I  care.  It's  poor  mother  I'm  thinking 
about.  She's  been  the  best  possible  wife  to  me.  I 
—  I  did  look  forward  to  letting  her  have  the  balance 
of  her  days  in  comfort."  The  old  man's  unkempt 
gray  beard  drooped  dejectedly  on  his  chest. 

The  steward  came  up  to  Captain  Kettle  with  a  re- 
spectful whisper.  "  I've  made  ready  for  the  captain 
the  room  the  African  ladies  had,  sir,  trusting  that's 
your  wish." 

"  Very  good."  Kettle  put  a  hand  on  his  guest's 
shoulder,  and  shook  him  gently.  "  I  think  you  had 
better  turn  in." 

"  Qui'  ri',  my  dear,  qu'  ri',  mother.  Had  a  mos' 
Important  business  meeting  t'  attend.  You  may  put 
down  that  Malacca  in  the  hat-stand.  Really  no  of- 
fense this  time.  Business  negotiations  entirely  'n  your 
behalf,  ol'  lady,  though  unsuccessful  I'm  sorry  to  say. 
Future  entirely  hopeless.     Help  me  to  bed,  mother." 

"  Here,  let  me  help,"  said  Miss  Dubbs,  with  suspi- 
ciously shining  eyes.  "  No,  don't  you  bother,  stew- 
ard.    The  captain  and  I  can  manage." 

Once  more  they  were  In  the  chart  house,  sitting  side 
by  side  on  the  settee.     Miss  Dubbs  stole  out  a  sympa- 


THE  SURVIVING  FARNISH  371 

thetic  hand,  and  gripped  Captain  Kettle's  with  her 
very  capable  fingers.  "  It's  been  very  hard  for  him, 
poor  old  man,  but  we  have  to  face  these  misfor- 
tunes." 

"  Yes,"  said  Kettle,  and  drew  his  hand  away. 

"  I  suppose  you'd  like  to  do  something  for  him  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Kettle,  and  rested  his  torpedo  beard 
in  the  heel  of  his  fist. 

"  It  would  be  a  charity  if  you  did." 

"  No,"  said  the  little  sailor,  and  stood  briskly  to 
his  feet.  "Miss,"  he  said,  "it'll  be  hard  for  you  to 
understand,  but  that  man's  my  old  sea-daddy.  His 
wife  was  all  the  mother  I  ever  knew.  The  pair  of 
them  brought  me  up,  and  a  hard  enough  pinch  it  must 
have  been,  but  when  there  wasn't  enough  to  go  round, 
they  were  the  ones  that  went  without.  That  hap- 
pened more  than  once.  There  were  times  when  em- 
ployment was  scarce,  and  they  were  nipped,  miss, 
badly  nipped ;  but  there  was  always  tucker  for  me, 
and  clothes,  and  school-pence,  and  that's  what  I'm 
remembering  now.  When  first  I  came  to  sea,  Mrs. 
Farnish  —  I  used  to  call  her  mother,  y'  know,  miss  — 
she  said,  *  You'll  look  after  the  old  man,  Owen,'  and  I 
said  I  w^ould,  and  I've  just  got  to.  You  see,  miss, 
she  was  all  the  mother  I've  ever  known,  and  anyway, 
I  never  went  back  on  my  word.  I  couldn't  throw 
charity  to  Captain  Farnish,  Miss  Dubbs.  He's  got 
to  have  his  ship  back,  with  all  that's  in  her  in  the  way 
of  cargo,  just  as  she  was  given  to  me  by  Sir  George. 
And  now,  Miss  Dubbs,  dear,  I  know  what  you  think, 


Z72     MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  KETTLE 

and  you  can  say  it  presently.  I  know  in  my  present 
state  I'm  no  man  for  a  splendid  lady  like  you  to 
marry,  and  so  I  want  you  please  to  consider  our  en- 
gagement at  an  end." 

"  You  throw  me  off,  do  you,  Captain  ?  " 

"  If  you  put  it  that  way." 

"  Then  look  here,  young  man,  I'll  sue  you  for 
breach  of  promise  if  you  do  as  sure  as  my  name's  Miss 
Dubbs.  After  all  the  trouble  I've  had  to  get  the  man 
I  wanted,  I  don't  lose  him  like  that." 

"  I'm  just  a  pauper,  and  I  don't  think  I'll  ever  be 
anything  more.  It  will  be  work  for  mine  all  the  days 
of  my  natural." 

"  Which  is  precisely  what  I  looked  forward  to  when 
I  first  permitted  you  to  pay  me  attention  at  the  Mason's 
Arms.  I  didn't  mistake  you  for  a  bank  manager  in 
disguise,  although  you  may  have  thought  so." 

The  sailor  clapped  an  enthusiastic  arm  round  the 
lady's  waist.  "  Miss  Dubbs,  my  dearest,  how  splen- 
did you  are ! " 

"  So  that's  all  right,"  was  her  murmured  retort. 
*'  You're  mine.  Captain,  till  death  us  do  part,  and 
don't  you  forget  it.  But  it  will  be  an  upset  for  Sir 
George's  plans." 

"  If  you  don't  mind,  we'll  not  tell  Sir  George.  He 
doesn't  know  Captain  Farnish,  you  see,  and  I  should 
hate  to  have  him  think  I  was  —  well,  you  know  what 
I  mean.  Time  enough  to  transfer  to  the  old  man 
when  we  get  home  and  the  ore's  realized  on  and  the 
Norman    Tozvers    is    sold. —  It's  —  By    James,    how 


THE  SURVIVING  FARNISH  Z7Z 

dare  you  poke  your  unpleasant  head  in  at  my  port- 
hole, McTodd?" 

"  Three  o'clock  in  the  morrning  and  the  skipper 
courting  his  girrl.  '  Oh,  silver  moon  and  Afric's 
stars,  you've  much  to  answer  for.'  G.  R.  Tennyson 
wrote  that,  and  I  aye  thought  it  one  of  his  finest 
poems.  Man,  but  flirrting  like  this  is  a  terrible  ex- 
ample to  some  of  the  ship's  company.  Me,  for  in- 
stance." 

"  We're  engaged,"  snapped  Kettle. 

Mr.  McTodd  rubbed  his  chin,  and  shut  one  eye. 
"Are  ye  telling  me  that  as  news?" 

"  It's  the  latest." 

"  Oh,  vara  humorous,"  said  McTodd.  "  Pulr  young 
things,  they've  just  discovered  what  this  sma'  worrld 
of  a  ship-board  kenned  since  the  day  we  first  left 
Las  Palmas.  Miss,  I  kiss  my  hand  to  ye,  and  after 
I've  been  below  to  drink  your  health  out  of  the  chief 
engineer's  whisky  bottle  which  is  under  his  bunk, 
I'll  go  to  my  chest,  and  see  if  I  canna'  find  a  suitable 
wedding  present.  But  what  I  came  to  tell  is  this. 
That  blue-eyed  saint  has  swung  off  to  the  shore.  Do 
ye  think  that  man's  straight,  or  just  an  African? 
And  when  is  he  going  to  take  delivery  of  those  Win- 
chester rifles  he's  already  paid  for  ?  " 


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